How do you pay for Harvard?
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Anonymous
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This is really interesting - b/c my DH was planning on changing jobs from Fed so we could pay for college.
In this case, if we pay off our house, put as much as we can into retirement savings, and get keep our fed jobs we would be better off. |
Anonymous
| You take out loans. |
Anonymous
That's exactly it. The loosening of the standards for loans in the mid-90's meant that colleges were free to raise tuition, because the students could get loans to pay for it. It raised the cost for everyone. I think it also created this mentality that if you can get into a desirable college, that of course you should go, because you can get a loan to pay for it. The 18 year olds signing up for this weren't thinking about what it would take to pay back these loans down the road, when they were thinking about getting married, buying a house, starting a family. The intention of the student loan program was to allow everyone to go to college. The unintentional consequence was the increase in cost for everyone, and teenagers mortgaging their future without fully understanding the burden they'd be facing later. |
Anonymous
| If my kid got into Harvard, she would not go. I did the price calculator thing referenced above, and Harvard would give us no aid. We don't have our retirement funds sheltered in our house or in 401(k)'s (wish we'd thought of this), so we're not eligible for FA, even from Harvard. Our HHI is <100K, so we ought to be eligible, but we stupidly put our retirement money into investments that have grown. Now the colleges want us to use our retirement funds to pay for DDs schooling. She's going to State U unless she gets a whole lotta those $1,000 scholarships. |
Anonymous
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I took out the max in subsidized and Perkins loans. My mom paid the rest out of her retirement accounts. My mom made 30k per year and didn't have anywhere else to pull money from besides her retirement accounts.
Still bitter about not getting much financial aide. Love the system where a divorced parent's income counts towards the family contribution despite him refusing to pay a penny. |
Anonymous
This the truth. Back in the day middle class and upper middle class families could afford private colleges with a few loans. Now the debt load to cover these VERY overpriced undergraduate educations is way too high. |
Anonymous
I hear ya. My dad (my parents divorced when I was 5) refused to pay for college since he "did just fine without a college degree." He made a decent salary b/c he worked his way up at AT&T over many years but colleges didn't care that he wasn't going to pay the tuition. So I got zero in FA. |
Anonymous
| ivies aren't as expensive as you'd think they are and the payoff of going to harvard > cost of attending |
Anonymous
Relative to UMD or UVA, yes, Ivies are actually pretty expensive. DD goes to an Ivy, so we have some experience with this. Also the payoff for going to Harvard most definitely depends on what your kid majors in while he's at Harvard. And whether he goes to a decent grad school, if that's in the cards. If he does finance at Harvard, then he's golden. Theater, not so much. |
Anonymous
The calculator states gross |
Anonymous
63k |
Anonymous
| For the vast, vast majority of families, the Ivy League schools are an absolute steal. Families making less than 60K, for example, will go to Harvard for free. Families making up to $180K will pay 10% of their income. |
Anonymous
is that gross or adjusted gross? If its the former we are out of luck, if it is the latter, we can expect some help. TIA |
Anonymous
Gross. Not AGI. Plus the calculate any money in your child's name, such as 529. |
Anonymous
| What gross income is usually the cut off for financial aid if it is your first child in college? I see the number $180,000 on the boards quite a bit. |