What is a "donut hole family"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the Midwest in the 80s and 90s. My dad was a partner at a mid sized law firm and did very well and my mom was a headmistress at a private school who also had a very high salary. My brother, sister and I went to Catholic schools and private single sex high schools. My dad was absolutely shocked when we didn't qualify for financial aid. My parents and school steered us to Catholic colleges where we would get lots of scholarships making their school look good, because we were high ACT and SAT scorers and the state school. My brother's school did have him apply to more "top colleges" but I did not apply to any schools like that. Maybe a few kids in my class went to schools like Notre Dame, Columbia, NYC, U of Chicago or small liberal art schools like Reed, Rice, etc. My dad and mom were from a working class mindset. They had zero debt, had paid off their mortgage, paid for their cars, etc. But they did not save or have a 529. My brother asked in HS if he had a college fund like his frieds at his prep school and they laughed. My dad honestly thought we would get work study and be able to get a good job in the summer, like he and my mom did (union jobs) that would pay for the school year.

My parents grew up very working class. When you are 18, you are on your own. My parents claimed me on their taxes so I got absolutely zero financial aid. But they didn't help me out because they thought I should be able to support myself on the minimal loans I took out (like $1500 a semester) and measely scholarship (it covered my tuition, but not books or housing). I worked 3 jobs in college and it was horrible. I was always worried about money, always tired, always hungry. I was food insecure. Meanwhile my dad was making $500K a year in the 90s and my mom was making $90K. My parents are not flashy and didn't owe me anything, but I sure as hell didn't want my kids to experience what I did. Imagine being 18, the daughter of white collar jobs, and not really understanding rent, food, utiliities for a summer house when your sorority house is closed. I had super sketchy jobs: at a collection agency, as a personal assistant, as a bartender and waitress. That is what I could get.

My parents could not understand why I was in a sorority (it was literally $1500 a semester versus $7K a semester for the dorms and included food and parking). My parents think I'm hella bougie. I can't even tell you the horrible things I dealt with in college at my part-time jobs.

I did get a full scholarship to grad school because I worked my ass off in college and started a small business when most people were having fun and out drinking. But I was also very dependent on boyfriends in an unhealthy way and exposed to some really sketchy situations that as a parent I would never want my daughter or son to be in.

My parents judge me and my DH because we send our kids to public schools. We are both feds and we wanted to save for college. VA colleges are so competitive and I'm not sure if our kids have the test scores for them. I did go to an Ivy for grad school and I saw the advantages I have over others with my alumni network and networking. I still have resentment towards my dad who was confident I could find a job keeping a resource binder in the dorm that would magically pay my room and board or slinging food at the cafeteria that would miraculously pay $35K in tuition.

Wow, your parents are really special kinds of a-holes. I have a feeling that the "there's no such thing as donut hole families, only ones who didn't try hard enough" posters would get along great with them.

Uh no her parents are very similar to the donut hole families, actually. Didn't save for college.

Except her parents were highly educated, "smart" people, involved in education (mom) and somehow still had no clue what college costs were and how things worked, despite having the income/ability to save.
Very different than the family where both parents work at the local factories, only graduated HS and really have no clue what attending college will cost or the process and truly barely make enough to save

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being able to save for college is an absolute luxury. One of the only reasons we didn't drown in our 30s financially was because my DH and I were able to pay off our own college costs with some help from family.

If you are still paying you own student loans, it is tough to find cash to sock away for your kids. Especially since college savings should never come before retirement savings. How many Americans do you think have $1M in retirement savings? I'll answer that: VERY FEW.

Are college costs insane? Yes. If you are rich (making over $200k is RICH) does anyone feel bad for you? NO.

Those who are making $200 K and have a child of college age, have not been making $200 K for long, ourselves included. No way to save enough for private school, but private schools think we can afford $82k annually

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where do you recommend the non-wealthy people who live in DC should go that is within their means? There's no state flagship (because there's no state) so your best hope is out-of-state tuition, which is still crazy expensive, even with DC TAG. Because that hasn't kept pace with inflation either.

You plan and move to MD or VA in time so your kid can be In-STate somewhere. Because both states have several excellent schools (outside of the state flagships). That way you can afford college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you recommend the non-wealthy people who live in DC should go that is within their means? There's no state flagship (because there's no state) so your best hope is out-of-state tuition, which is still crazy expensive, even with DC TAG. Because that hasn't kept pace with inflation either.

You plan and move to MD or VA in time so your kid can be In-STate somewhere. Because both states have several excellent schools (outside of the state flagships). That way you can afford college.

You will have to present old tax documents to financial aid, as long as you were paying taxes, you should be all set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you recommend the non-wealthy people who live in DC should go that is within their means? There's no state flagship (because there's no state) so your best hope is out-of-state tuition, which is still crazy expensive, even with DC TAG. Because that hasn't kept pace with inflation either.

You plan and move to MD or VA in time so your kid can be In-STate somewhere. Because both states have several excellent schools (outside of the state flagships). That way you can afford college.

You will have to present old tax documents to financial aid, as long as you were paying taxes, you should be all set.

If not, it COULD be a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You people sound like the same ones who are telling young people that the reason why they can't afford to buy a house is that they're buying too much avocado toast.

It is unlucky if you just miss a cut-off point. Like, if aid is available to families making less that $200k and you make $215k. Of course, it is frustrating when you're treated the same as a family that makes $2 million. No amount of belt-tightening or savings will change that. And god forbid, life intervened and you had a medical emergency or layoff at any point over the years that set you back. People lead real lives and the crazy tuition inflation is really unforgiving, even when you've tried your best.

I think it is unfortunate that a lot of middle-class families are shut out of private universities in this country. And I feel for these families who have kids who can't dream as big as your kid can.

This.

This thread is full of angry rich people who don't want others to get what they have, and struggling people who think everyone should struggle if they had to

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody in their right mind thinks college cost increases over the past 25 years are not exorbitant.

and congress wants to put a cap on nurses pay, come on let's put some regulations around college costs.

I don’t disagree with you, at all. But I still don’t believe there’s any such thing as a donut hole family.

You are right. There is no such thing as a donut hole family. There are only families who refuse to liquidate their retirement funds, forgo their annual week at the beach, sell or remortgage their family homes, work until they are 80. These people are selfish and stingy when they choose not to pay $320K per child and rising for their kids' undergraduate degrees, because if they only tried a little harder, they could pull it off. Cheapskates.

Are you so blind to reality that you don't realize there are options between $320k/kid and "your kids can't go to college"? If you can't try a little harder to save, then try a little harder to master a cost/benefit analysis. If your vacation is an annual week at the beach, then expensive private schools are not for you! Send Larlo to Whatever State Tech and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Isn't this the problem? Expensive schools are for the wealthy....??? wtf?? Can you not see a problem with what you typed?

And luxury cars and luxury homes are for the wealthy and private K-12 are for the wealthy. Life is about choices.

Ultimately, only a extremely small percentage of kids can even attend/get accepted at an "elite university" as there are not that many available seats. So it's not an option to get accepted for 99.9999% of students anyhow. Yet, nobody is saying you can't get an education. There are affordable options. Focus on what you can afford and search for merit and find the best fit for your kid---that includes affordability.

Most of life is about choices and for the majority of us, we can't afford the luxury choices anywhere in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you recommend the non-wealthy people who live in DC should go that is within their means? There's no state flagship (because there's no state) so your best hope is out-of-state tuition, which is still crazy expensive, even with DC TAG. Because that hasn't kept pace with inflation either.

You plan and move to MD or VA in time so your kid can be In-STate somewhere. Because both states have several excellent schools (outside of the state flagships). That way you can afford college.

I would go to VA so they can commute to George Mason as a backup plan. UMD CP has gotten competitive and if you don't get in and need to go to a MD public that is further away, room and board add a lot to the price tag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody in their right mind thinks college cost increases over the past 25 years are not exorbitant.

and congress wants to put a cap on nurses pay, come on let's put some regulations around college costs.

I don’t disagree with you, at all. But I still don’t believe there’s any such thing as a donut hole family.

Anybody making $150K HHI will not qualify for aid, so explain to me how a family of 4 saves $400K to pay for college?

Assuming they make $70K HHI at 30 and by the time they are 45 they make $150K

By making it their top priority and living modestly in every other possible way. If they don’t want to do that, they can use publics.

Can you write out the budget for me?

Sure. You start by making $70k. You progress to making $150k, with fairly modest raises each year. You keep your expenses constant as they were at $70k. Just did the math in Excel and by simply doing that, not even investing the difference in 529s (which of course any sane person would do) it's over $430k after tax.

Keep expenses the same over 20 years...like groceries? Real estate? Taxes? Gas???????

You continue to live the same life style. Yes, there is inflation, but you don't switch to more expensive groceries, travel, cars, etc. That is how we did it. People are unreasonable with high incomes to expect aid.

Yes, it's not that difficult to understand. You make choices to save, and if your income has increased by $100K in the last decade, you could have chosen to save the new income. Ideally it should have been split between retirement and college. So instead of spending any salary increases, you choose to put most of it in to some form of savings. It's a unique concept to most in America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody in their right mind thinks college cost increases over the past 25 years are not exorbitant.

and congress wants to put a cap on nurses pay, come on let's put some regulations around college costs.

I don’t disagree with you, at all. But I still don’t believe there’s any such thing as a donut hole family.

You are right. There is no such thing as a donut hole family. There are only families who refuse to liquidate their retirement funds, forgo their annual week at the beach, sell or remortgage their family homes, work until they are 80. These people are selfish and stingy when they choose not to pay $320K per child and rising for their kids' undergraduate degrees, because if they only tried a little harder, they could pull it off. Cheapskates.

Are you so blind to reality that you don't realize there are options between $320k/kid and "your kids can't go to college"? If you can't try a little harder to save, then try a little harder to master a cost/benefit analysis. If your vacation is an annual week at the beach, then expensive private schools are not for you! Send Larlo to Whatever State Tech and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Isn't this the problem? Expensive schools are for the wealthy....??? wtf?? Can you not see a problem with what you typed?

And luxury cars and luxury homes are for the wealthy and private K-12 are for the wealthy. Life is about choices.

Ultimately, only a extremely small percentage of kids can even attend/get accepted at an "elite university" as there are not that many available seats. So it's not an option to get accepted for 99.9999% of students anyhow. Yet, nobody is saying you can't get an education. There are affordable options. Focus on what you can afford and search for merit and find the best fit for your kid---that includes affordability.

Most of life is about choices and for the majority of us, we can't afford the luxury choices anywhere in life.

4-year state universities are becoming a luxury too unfortunately, but there will always be community college at least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:new poster here

Wow. I thought we were a "donut hole" family but I guess not.

What is a step below "donut hole" called? We make too much to qualify for aid, but paying for an expensive school would involve far more than "liquidating assets." It would be more like taking on a second full time job, skipping at least one meal a day, absolutely zero entertainment budget (not even cable tv or netflix) etc.

Well, there is this thing that you had 18 years to save for college. Which is what most people do.

You're assuming stagnant incomes. We have a HHI of about 225k and one in 7th and one in 8th. Three hears ago HHI was 150k. When the kids start college it will be about 250k if we continue on the same track. 160k a year in tuition is both not possible and not a number that we ever could have saved for on our incomes.

It's also laughable that PP thinks "most people" save for college for 18 years. I mean, GTFO.

Just because you didn't save, doesn't meant eh rest of us haven't. We have a $160K or so income, much less just a few years ago. We saved starting at birth. You live in a cheap house, no fancy groceries, very few vacations, old cars...

Cool story bro.

Still most haven’t.

If you haven't then you made that choice. We all have choices, and then we get to live with the consequences of our choices

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You people sound like the same ones who are telling young people that the reason why they can't afford to buy a house is that they're buying too much avocado toast.

It is unlucky if you just miss a cut-off point. Like, if aid is available to families making less that $200k and you make $215k. Of course, it is frustrating when you're treated the same as a family that makes $2 million. No amount of belt-tightening or savings will change that. And god forbid, life intervened and you had a medical emergency or layoff at any point over the years that set you back. People lead real lives and the crazy tuition inflation is really unforgiving, even when you've tried your best.

I think it is unfortunate that a lot of middle-class families are shut out of private universities in this country. And I feel for these families who have kids who can't dream as big as your kid can.

This.

This thread is full of angry rich people who don't want others to get what they have, and struggling people who think everyone should struggle if they had to

DP here who is advocating for people to appeal to financial aid whenever possible, because there are legitimately struggling people, who do not know that there is an option to appeal to financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody in their right mind thinks college cost increases over the past 25 years are not exorbitant.

and congress wants to put a cap on nurses pay, come on let's put some regulations around college costs.

I don’t disagree with you, at all. But I still don’t believe there’s any such thing as a donut hole family.

You are right. There is no such thing as a donut hole family. There are only families who refuse to liquidate their retirement funds, forgo their annual week at the beach, sell or remortgage their family homes, work until they are 80. These people are selfish and stingy when they choose not to pay $320K per child and rising for their kids' undergraduate degrees, because if they only tried a little harder, they could pull it off. Cheapskates.

Are you so blind to reality that you don't realize there are options between $320k/kid and "your kids can't go to college"? If you can't try a little harder to save, then try a little harder to master a cost/benefit analysis. If your vacation is an annual week at the beach, then expensive private schools are not for you! Send Larlo to Whatever State Tech and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Isn't this the problem? Expensive schools are for the wealthy....??? wtf?? Can you not see a problem with what you typed?

And luxury cars and luxury homes are for the wealthy and private K-12 are for the wealthy. Life is about choices.

Ultimately, only a extremely small percentage of kids can even attend/get accepted at an "elite university" as there are not that many available seats. So it's not an option to get accepted for 99.9999% of students anyhow. Yet, nobody is saying you can't get an education. There are affordable options. Focus on what you can afford and search for merit and find the best fit for your kid---that includes affordability.

Most of life is about choices and for the majority of us, we can't afford the luxury choices anywhere in life.

4-year state universities are becoming a luxury too unfortunately, but there will always be community college at least.

IDK, we could not afford to send our kids to private K-12, so guess what? We didn't. Not everyone is living large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:new poster here

Wow. I thought we were a "donut hole" family but I guess not.

What is a step below "donut hole" called? We make too much to qualify for aid, but paying for an expensive school would involve far more than "liquidating assets." It would be more like taking on a second full time job, skipping at least one meal a day, absolutely zero entertainment budget (not even cable tv or netflix) etc.

Well, there is this thing that you had 18 years to save for college. Which is what most people do.

You're assuming stagnant incomes. We have a HHI of about 225k and one in 7th and one in 8th. Three hears ago HHI was 150k. When the kids start college it will be about 250k if we continue on the same track. 160k a year in tuition is both not possible and not a number that we ever could have saved for on our incomes.

It's also laughable that PP thinks "most people" save for college for 18 years. I mean, GTFO.

Just because you didn't save, doesn't meant eh rest of us haven't. We have a $160K or so income, much less just a few years ago. We saved starting at birth. You live in a cheap house, no fancy groceries, very few vacations, old cars...

Cool story bro.

Still most haven’t.

If you haven't then you made that choice. We all have choices, and then we get to live with the consequences of our choices

Exactly. If you can't save a few hundred dollars per month, you need to reduce your spending elsewhere or get a higher paying job. You just need to decide whether it is worth it. We make lots of sacrifices (we rent and our kids share a room) because the rent is stable whereas a mortgage would be more and we'd have repair costs. But we come from somewhere where home ownership is not perceieved as something you are entitled to like in the U.S.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody in their right mind thinks college cost increases over the past 25 years are not exorbitant.

and congress wants to put a cap on nurses pay, come on let's put some regulations around college costs.

I don’t disagree with you, at all. But I still don’t believe there’s any such thing as a donut hole family.

You are right. There is no such thing as a donut hole family. There are only families who refuse to liquidate their retirement funds, forgo their annual week at the beach, sell or remortgage their family homes, work until they are 80. These people are selfish and stingy when they choose not to pay $320K per child and rising for their kids' undergraduate degrees, because if they only tried a little harder, they could pull it off. Cheapskates.

Are you so blind to reality that you don't realize there are options between $320k/kid and "your kids can't go to college"? If you can't try a little harder to save, then try a little harder to master a cost/benefit analysis. If your vacation is an annual week at the beach, then expensive private schools are not for you! Send Larlo to Whatever State Tech and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Isn't this the problem? Expensive schools are for the wealthy....??? wtf?? Can you not see a problem with what you typed?

And luxury cars and luxury homes are for the wealthy and private K-12 are for the wealthy. Life is about choices.

Ultimately, only a extremely small percentage of kids can even attend/get accepted at an "elite university" as there are not that many available seats. So it's not an option to get accepted for 99.9999% of students anyhow. Yet, nobody is saying you can't get an education. There are affordable options. Focus on what you can afford and search for merit and find the best fit for your kid---that includes affordability.

Most of life is about choices and for the majority of us, we can't afford the luxury choices anywhere in life.

4-year state universities are becoming a luxury too unfortunately, but there will always be community college at least.

IDK, we could not afford to send our kids to private K-12, so guess what? We didn't. Not everyone is living large.

Trades are a good option if you cannot afford college anywhere.