Does everyone on here with kids applying to top 50 schools really have the $80K per year to spend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, yes, I have a kid in college and am paying that kind of huge bill every year. But the real sticker shock was when I just looked at med/dental/law school. The fourth year of dental was $130,000! A bunch of law schools were $110,000. We can manage undergrad for two kids (we are two fed workers), but the next part is going to be extremely difficult. Hopefully both kids won’t pick 3-4 year professional schools!

Why are you even considering paying for grad school for your kids?

Different poster and different circumstances but the answer for me is, so that my children have the best chance to remain in the economic class that they grew up in by having a debt free education.

+1 being debt free out of college is the best gift you can give your adult kids.

[Anonymous]

We had the money to pay for top 50 but that doesn’t mean it would have been smart to just pay it. Our kids went to UVA and William & Mary. No way were we going to pay for private. That’s nuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These schools may not offer merit aid, but they all offer need based aid and many are need blind. What's the issue?

the issue is that many of us are donut families and can't afford $80k/year * 4 years * 2 kids. That would be $640k. That's more than the median price of a house in this country. And considering that so many people don't have enough for their retirement, it's stupid for people to not save for retirement over paying a stupid amount of money for the vast majority of colleges that are $80k per year.

Agreed. So in all situations, you save for retirement first, then send your kid to a school you can afford.
It's quite simple. So your kid does not attend an elite school that costs $80K/year---majority of kids wont, because most wont even gain admission.
Likewise, your kid didn't get a $50K sports car for their 16th bday---neither do the majority of 16 year olds, yet some will. Most of life is about making choices of what you can afford. The good news is you can get an excellent education and excel in life while attending a school you can afford. Success happens to majority of people who did not attend a T25 school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had the money to pay for top 50 but that doesn’t mean it would have been smart to just pay it. Our kids went to UVA and William & Mary. No way were we going to pay for private. That’s nuts.

Exactly what we did. With schools the caliber of UVA and W&M I could not wrap my head around paying $85k/year instead of $38-40k/year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These schools may not offer merit aid, but they all offer need based aid and many are need blind. What's the issue?

Because donut hole families in high cost areas are screwed!!

Their kid can get into Ivies, Hopkins, etc., but will have to be full pay at $85-90k because at $175k HHI they aren’t considered in need. $360k for each kids’ undergrad is not doable without major loans even with $150k in each 529. In fact, the asserts and 529 count against them too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
I get that $90K is a rounding error for some on here and two weeks' salaries for others.

But I bet that for most of us, $360K is not an insignificant amount.
And yet we're fighting each other for the privilege of paying it.

We are truly idiots for playing into this. Excuse my insult as I include myself in that group.

OP, you had many chances to get there with so little money. When Netflix raised their DVD monthly rental from $7 to $11, it was time to buy Netflix stock. When Apple came out with Iphone, you still had several years to buy the stock to get to $360k. When you were shopping on Amazon, you should have been buying the stock. All in all, ca $30k in any one of them, would have taken you there.
There are so many other companies that were clearly going to do well.
I started really late like in 2020 because of work and visa problems.Almost 20 years down the drain, and I still made it. My older one doesn't want me pay that much for college and wants to go to community college. Younger one is about to get $300k, but outside of 529 ofcourse. Younger DC has 10 years til college. We were never high earners. We had to make money work for us even if we knew nothing about it. Well, almost nothing. It's extremely good time to be in the market and/or enter the market now to forever. Not a financial advice.

First of all, not everyone is a savvy investor. And I'll go further than not many people know much about investing at all. So good for you? But you're expected a tremendous amount of financial know-all for most people. I grew up pretty poor and I can tell you I didn't have any sort of "investing" until I was nearly 30. Partly due to my debt (school) to income ratio and partly due to just not knowing.

Second, you imply that people should give up any sort of luxury, however small, to fund college. And I fundamentally disagree with that. Colleges are overpriced. Loans are predatory. And yet, despite what we say about "you can do well at any college" there aer many that will only hire from ivies, top tiers, etc. I saw that first hand in my own line of work. So people have valid reasons to want those schools.

Where did you work that would only hire from "ivies, top tiers, etc"? Because there really are not many areas that are like that. People do NOT have valid reasons to want those schools. There are literally only ~50-60K freshman matriculating at T25 schools each year. Yet millions of people are happy, succesful in their careers. Do the math, majority of them did not attend T25 schools.

At my aged agency- my incoming class I had 6 Ivy alum and me and two others with state university degrees. We all came in sane grade/step and all make the same 25 years later.

[Anonymous]

^Fed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These schools may not offer merit aid, but they all offer need based aid and many are need blind. What's the issue?

Because donut hole families in high cost areas are screwed!!

Their kid can get into Ivies, Hopkins, etc., but will have to be full pay at $85-90k because at $175k HHI they aren’t considered in need. $360k for each kids’ undergrad is not doable without major loans even with $150k in each 529. In fact, the asserts and 529 count against them too.

Someone making $175k will receive significant aid at an Ivy. Not sure why folks continue to spread this myth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These schools may not offer merit aid, but they all offer need based aid and many are need blind. What's the issue?

Because donut hole families in high cost areas are screwed!!

Their kid can get into Ivies, Hopkins, etc., but will have to be full pay at $85-90k because at $175k HHI they aren’t considered in need. $360k for each kids’ undergrad is not doable without major loans even with $150k in each 529. In fact, the asserts and 529 count against them too.

Someone making $175k will receive significant aid at an Ivy. Not sure why folks continue to spread this myth.

This. Our HHI was around 190k and our kid got substantial aid. We live very, very frugally and had saved most of the ~55k/year that was our contribution. The top schools give aid packages that don't include loans, so while we still live very simply, our child received a fantastic education with no debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These schools may not offer merit aid, but they all offer need based aid and many are need blind. What's the issue?

Because donut hole families in high cost areas are screwed!!

Their kid can get into Ivies, Hopkins, etc., but will have to be full pay at $85-90k because at $175k HHI they aren’t considered in need. $360k for each kids’ undergrad is not doable without major loans even with $150k in each 529. In fact, the asserts and 529 count against them too.

Someone making $175k will receive significant aid at an Ivy. Not sure why folks continue to spread this myth.

This. Our HHI was around 190k and our kid got substantial aid. We live very, very frugally and had saved most of the ~55k/year that was our contribution. The top schools give aid packages that don't include loans, so while we still live very simply, our child received a fantastic education with no debt.

Also, less expensive schools offered less generous aid packages, so they wouldn't actually have been much cheaper. We're in DC, and UVA's aid offer was basically just DCTag. Our kid also was offered a full tuition scholarship to a popular (but not especially elite) SLAC, but the living expenses would not have been covered, and the overall price wasn't much lower than the far richer experience she had at her very selective university.

[Anonymous]

“Any kid who can get into a "T10" school is likeliest going to succeed no matter where they go. Even to a state school that is not within the artificial list of T50 schools that a newspaper creates every year.”

This might be one of the most important things in this discussion…if your kid is Ivy material but somehow ends up at U of Oklahoma, make the most of it.

If kid is that special, get a high GPA, get in an honors program, get name on some research, get super recommendations from professors, take advantage of professors’ and dean’s’ connections around the world, win awards for academic excellence, get ahead of the game credit-wise so u can undertake some master’s program they might let super achievers into. On and on.

Even mediocre big public universities get their share of really smart students & have ways of keeping them entertained & challenged. Be resourceful in letting it be known that you are happy to be there but would happier if you could explore special opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These schools may not offer merit aid, but they all offer need based aid and many are need blind. What's the issue?

Because donut hole families in high cost areas are screwed!!

Their kid can get into Ivies, Hopkins, etc., but will have to be full pay at $85-90k because at $175k HHI they aren’t considered in need. $360k for each kids’ undergrad is not doable without major loans even with $150k in each 529. In fact, the asserts and 529 count against them too.

Someone making $175k will receive significant aid at an Ivy. Not sure why folks continue to spread this myth.

This. Our HHI was around 190k and our kid got substantial aid. We live very, very frugally and had saved most of the ~55k/year that was our contribution. The top schools give aid packages that don't include loans, so while we still live very simply, our child received a fantastic education with no debt.

you'll receive aid as long as you have "typical assets" which for most ivy league schools is about 200k outside retirement. we maybe 150k HHI and got zero aid from Princeton, one of the more generous schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These schools may not offer merit aid, but they all offer need based aid and many are need blind. What's the issue?

Because donut hole families in high cost areas are screwed!!

Their kid can get into Ivies, Hopkins, etc., but will have to be full pay at $85-90k because at $175k HHI they aren’t considered in need. $360k for each kids’ undergrad is not doable without major loans even with $150k in each 529. In fact, the asserts and 529 count against them too.

Someone making $175k will receive significant aid at an Ivy. Not sure why folks continue to spread this myth.

This. Our HHI was around 190k and our kid got substantial aid. We live very, very frugally and had saved most of the ~55k/year that was our contribution. The top schools give aid packages that don't include loans, so while we still live very simply, our child received a fantastic education with no debt.

you'll receive aid as long as you have "typical assets" which for most ivy league schools is about 200k outside retirement. we maybe 150k HHI and got zero aid from Princeton, one of the more generous schools.

Hahahahahaha

That's of course why students have a trillion dollars in debt...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These schools may not offer merit aid, but they all offer need based aid and many are need blind. What's the issue?

Because donut hole families in high cost areas are screwed!!

Their kid can get into Ivies, Hopkins, etc., but will have to be full pay at $85-90k because at $175k HHI they aren’t considered in need. $360k for each kids’ undergrad is not doable without major loans even with $150k in each 529. In fact, the asserts and 529 count against them too.

Someone making $175k will receive significant aid at an Ivy. Not sure why folks continue to spread this myth.

This. Our HHI was around 190k and our kid got substantial aid. We live very, very frugally and had saved most of the ~55k/year that was our contribution. The top schools give aid packages that don't include loans, so while we still live very simply, our child received a fantastic education with no debt.

you'll receive aid as long as you have "typical assets" which for most ivy league schools is about 200k outside retirement. we maybe 150k HHI and got zero aid from Princeton, one of the more generous schools.

Sorry you had too much wealth in assets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These schools may not offer merit aid, but they all offer need based aid and many are need blind. What's the issue?

Because donut hole families in high cost areas are screwed!!

Their kid can get into Ivies, Hopkins, etc., but will have to be full pay at $85-90k because at $175k HHI they aren’t considered in need. $360k for each kids’ undergrad is not doable without major loans even with $150k in each 529. In fact, the asserts and 529 count against them too.

1/3 savings, 1/3 cash flow, 1/3 debt. You can afford it.