schools w/ no merit aid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get this is not everyone, but if you’ve done a major kitchen and bathroom remodel when those rooms were totally functional but just outdated, and you are driving two fully loaded 50k vehicles and you have a lawn service and cleaning service and your average athlete kids play travel hockey etc etc, you threw yourself right into that donut hole yourself.

In a high COL area, the donut hole hits families who could never afford a 50k car or major renovations. Around here, a teacher married to a cop can earn enough to hit donut hole status

This is true. Our closest friends are a teacher and a non-profit grants manager with a HHI of <180k. They live in a tiny, dated, starter house in Silver Spring, drive 10 year old cars (which they bought used) and have only been on one long-weekend trip to Europe, paid for by her parents. All other years they spend a week in Ocean City. They qualified for zero financial aid.

I hope they don’t feel bad about the travel. some people are so obnoxious with their European/overseas travel. If they like Ocean City, they should drive down to the Everglades National Park. That is a great vacation and not expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s the parents who didn’t themselves go to T20 schools that overstate their importance. It’s not the golden meal ticket you think it is, the majority of students at these schools still have painfully average careers.

Both myself and my partner attending T10 schools. We have never used any connections from those schools once we graduated. Yes, I'll admit that graduating in the early 90s, we both benefited from the school, in that not as many companies were hiring but we found jobs since companies were still going to these schools. However, I went on at least 10, 2nd interviews at larger companies (including Ford, Anderson,Bell Labs etc) and at least half the interviewees at these sessions were not T20 students. At the company who ultimately hired me, our incoming group of new hires (we knew each other as we lived together for summer then went off to grad school in fall), only 30-40% were from T20 schools, rest were from T60-80 schools, and at least 20% outside of those ranges, even in a difficult time to find a job.

But after our first jobs, we have NEVER used connections/alumni networks to get jobs. All future jobs have come because of the hard work, dedication we have done. Literally nobody asks about where you went to undergrad----they want to hear about your projects, and references from people who've worked with you. And even with our first jobs, we got hired because we both had over 3.9GPA in engineering at T10 schools---we earned our jobs by doing well. And my data points indicate that we would have still found jobs even if at a T100 school, because we would have networked/used resources until we landed a job because that's our work ethic.

You gotta admit, it's funny that you couldn't help but undermine yourself in the process of trying to make the opposite point.

[Anonymous]

"I went to a T10 university, and if I was hiring, would not give an advantage to a kid who went to a slac over a state school. Particularly a seven sister school, because very few kids are even willing to attend them these days. But thanks for your efforts to be condescending."

I went to HSYP and unlike you, I paid attention to things like where my professors and their kids went to college. That's why I know what Bryn Mawr is about.

Do you even realize that the average SAT at Bryn Mawr is 1410 while it's 1265 at Penn State?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get this is not everyone, but if you’ve done a major kitchen and bathroom remodel when those rooms were totally functional but just outdated, and you are driving two fully loaded 50k vehicles and you have a lawn service and cleaning service and your average athlete kids play travel hockey etc etc, you threw yourself right into that donut hole yourself.

Yup!
You made choices and now should live with those choices (without complaining). You should be able to recognized that you are still way more privileged than most families.

The amount of jealous, bit--- posters that are ok with middle of road wealth families getting screwed is astounding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get this is not everyone, but if you’ve done a major kitchen and bathroom remodel when those rooms were totally functional but just outdated, and you are driving two fully loaded 50k vehicles and you have a lawn service and cleaning service and your average athlete kids play travel hockey etc etc, you threw yourself right into that donut hole yourself.

In a high COL area, the donut hole hits families who could never afford a 50k car or major renovations. Around here, a teacher married to a cop can earn enough to hit donut hole status

This is true. Our closest friends are a teacher and a non-profit grants manager with a HHI of <180k. They live in a tiny, dated, starter house in Silver Spring, drive 10 year old cars (which they bought used) and have only been on one long-weekend trip to Europe, paid for by her parents. All other years they spend a week in Ocean City. They qualified for zero financial aid.

So - an AGI of 150k or less let’s you attend Columbia at no cost. Most top schools (the ones OP is complaining about) do give financial aid at that income level absent significant non-retirement assets. At a state school perhaps no financial aid but at private schools yes financial aid at a HHI of 180K (with an obviously lower AGI).

I just rank 180k with no savings, a 400k house with a 100k remaining mortgage balance through Wellesley's calculator and the expected parent contribution was 43k a year in addition to a loan. To me that's a fairly crushing amount of money for a 180k hhi.

If you make 180K and only have 100K in mortgage debt I would say you should be able to cashflow a lot. Their taxable income is 154,100, their federal tax is about $17500. Their mortgage is likely less than $1000/month and they take home over $100,000/year. Just sayin.

STOP telling people what they should have saved. You have NO idea what their personal situation aside from salary in the door (before taxes) is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get this is not everyone, but if you’ve done a major kitchen and bathroom remodel when those rooms were totally functional but just outdated, and you are driving two fully loaded 50k vehicles and you have a lawn service and cleaning service and your average athlete kids play travel hockey etc etc, you threw yourself right into that donut hole yourself.

Yup!
You made choices and now should live with those choices (without complaining). You should be able to recognized that you are still way more privileged than most families.

The amount of jealous, bit--- posters that are ok with middle of road wealth families getting screwed is astounding.

Please explain how middle of the road wealth families (defined as families that have sufficient resources to pay but they would have to cut back on other expenses or choose to go to a less expensive school they can afford as a result of their spending choices) are being screwed because private universities will not provide merit aid to their children. Also, please propose a solution once you identify the “problem.”

[Anonymous]

"The Virginia Tech kid is unlikely to have much of either."

This is tapping into what bothers OP. They don't like the fact that many people assume that a VT student isn't from a family with those connections, especially when the kid is actually the nephew of a partner there. They want to be able to pay for attendance at the schools where people assume the parents have those connections, but they can't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get this is not everyone, but if you’ve done a major kitchen and bathroom remodel when those rooms were totally functional but just outdated, and you are driving two fully loaded 50k vehicles and you have a lawn service and cleaning service and your average athlete kids play travel hockey etc etc, you threw yourself right into that donut hole yourself.

In a high COL area, the donut hole hits families who could never afford a 50k car or major renovations. Around here, a teacher married to a cop can earn enough to hit donut hole status

This is true. Our closest friends are a teacher and a non-profit grants manager with a HHI of <180k. They live in a tiny, dated, starter house in Silver Spring, drive 10 year old cars (which they bought used) and have only been on one long-weekend trip to Europe, paid for by her parents. All other years they spend a week in Ocean City. They qualified for zero financial aid.

So - an AGI of 150k or less let’s you attend Columbia at no cost. Most top schools (the ones OP is complaining about) do give financial aid at that income level absent significant non-retirement assets. At a state school perhaps no financial aid but at private schools yes financial aid at a HHI of 180K (with an obviously lower AGI).

I just rank 180k with no savings, a 400k house with a 100k remaining mortgage balance through Wellesley's calculator and the expected parent contribution was 43k a year in addition to a loan. To me that's a fairly crushing amount of money for a 180k hhi.

Yeah, we have agi<150k, and kid is at a comparable Ivy at 40k, not free! But, still, we're grateful for the aid, which made it doable. We saved about as much as OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I went to a T10 university, and if I was hiring, would not give an advantage to a kid who went to a slac over a state school. Particularly a seven sister school, because very few kids are even willing to attend them these days. But thanks for your efforts to be condescending."

I went to HSYP and unlike you, I paid attention to things like where my professors and their kids went to college. That's why I know what Bryn Mawr is about.

Do you even realize that the average SAT at Bryn Mawr is 1410 while it's 1265 at Penn State?

+1. The OP of this comment is beyond misinformed. And misogonystic as well? What do you have against a seven sisters school? Who said few kids are willing to attend Their acceptance rates show that isn't true.

Penn State acceptance rate: 57%
Virginia Tech: 56%

Seven Sisters

Barnard acceptance rate:8%

Wellesley: 16%

Vassar: 22%

Smith: 26%

Bryn Mawr:: 31%

Mt Holyoke: 40%


Anyhow, why would you NOT use an alumni network? It's not something very helpful in my field, but my spouse went to a very selective SLAC undergrad and then ivy league for grad school. The alumni network has helped him exponentially. And that's one of the reasons he went to these schools.

You seem to have some sort of chip on your shoulder.

[Anonymous]

Who cares what caused them to not save? The fact is that they don't have a pile of money set aside. What the average person "should" save is what they're expected to have saved. Schools allow for some wiggle room if you have extenuating circumstances like very high medical expenses.

"STOP telling people what they should have saved. You have NO idea what their personal situation aside from salary in the door (before taxes) is."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get this is not everyone, but if you’ve done a major kitchen and bathroom remodel when those rooms were totally functional but just outdated, and you are driving two fully loaded 50k vehicles and you have a lawn service and cleaning service and your average athlete kids play travel hockey etc etc, you threw yourself right into that donut hole yourself.

In a high COL area, the donut hole hits families who could never afford a 50k car or major renovations. Around here, a teacher married to a cop can earn enough to hit donut hole status

This is true. Our closest friends are a teacher and a non-profit grants manager with a HHI of <180k. They live in a tiny, dated, starter house in Silver Spring, drive 10 year old cars (which they bought used) and have only been on one long-weekend trip to Europe, paid for by her parents. All other years they spend a week in Ocean City. They qualified for zero financial aid.

So - an AGI of 150k or less let’s you attend Columbia at no cost. Most top schools (the ones OP is complaining about) do give financial aid at that income level absent significant non-retirement assets. At a state school perhaps no financial aid but at private schools yes financial aid at a HHI of 180K (with an obviously lower AGI).

I just rank 180k with no savings, a 400k house with a 100k remaining mortgage balance through Wellesley's calculator and the expected parent contribution was 43k a year in addition to a loan. To me that's a fairly crushing amount of money for a 180k hhi.

Agree. However, colleges seem to expect you to have saved for the kid's education over the past 18 years.

It's funny how they all act charitable with their 'we meet your full "demonstrated need"' BS when they get to define what that "demonstrated need" is, regardless of where you live! And we, the people, fund their huge tax breaks! Pathetic.

Amazing how that works. Colleges expect you to save for your kid's education, or at least top ones do. If it's so important for your family and you make $180K, then perhaps you should save. Maybe you wont get to 80K/year, but you might save $160K, which means you could take loans/cash flow the rest if it's truly that important to you. Or better yet, you now can attend a school just below T25 with minimal to no debt

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why people in this thread think there should be “merit aid” instead of just expanded need aid. What would that even look like? Everyone who gets into these top tier exclusive schools has to meet a high level of merit. If your point is that even higher income families can’t afford the schools, higher income families should get need aid, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s the parents who didn’t themselves go to T20 schools that overstate their importance. It’s not the golden meal ticket you think it is, the majority of students at these schools still have painfully average careers.

Both myself and my partner attending T10 schools. We have never used any connections from those schools once we graduated. Yes, I'll admit that graduating in the early 90s, we both benefited from the school, in that not as many companies were hiring but we found jobs since companies were still going to these schools. However, I went on at least 10, 2nd interviews at larger companies (including Ford, Anderson,Bell Labs etc) and at least half the interviewees at these sessions were not T20 students. At the company who ultimately hired me, our incoming group of new hires (we knew each other as we lived together for summer then went off to grad school in fall), only 30-40% were from T20 schools, rest were from T60-80 schools, and at least 20% outside of those ranges, even in a difficult time to find a job.

But after our first jobs, we have NEVER used connections/alumni networks to get jobs. All future jobs have come because of the hard work, dedication we have done. Literally nobody asks about where you went to undergrad----they want to hear about your projects, and references from people who've worked with you. And even with our first jobs, we got hired because we both had over 3.9GPA in engineering at T10 schools---we earned our jobs by doing well. And my data points indicate that we would have still found jobs even if at a T100 school, because we would have networked/used resources until we landed a job because that's our work ethic.

I don't understand why you are bragging about never using connections/alumni networks after your first jobs. The natural question is...why the heck not? To each their own, but I am aware of plenty of folks (myself included) that went on to found successful companies, became P/E partners, etc. that absolutely worked their network of fellow graduates/friends and alumni.

Your personal network and the alumni network are the most important reasons to go to a Top 10 school...why you wouldn't work them is beyond me.

Because we did not need to use work those connections. We were able to find our way in industry thru hard work, dedication and being damn good at our jobs. That's the whole point----if you are smart and work hard, you really don't need all those "connections" to succeed. You can get there without attending an elite university. Most employers care much more about your resume/recommendations from previous employers than where you went to undergrad.

Making $400K/year for one person at age 28. The other was making $150K, then became SAHP for our kids. By age 32, worth $4M+. By age 40 worth over $10M, by age 50 worth over $40M. Dont' know about you, but I'd consider that being extremely successful. Not sure what more we could have achieved by "working our connections". Now the connections we have are those we built thru our careers, not from where we attending University.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares what caused them to not save? The fact is that they don't have a pile of money set aside. What the average person "should" save is what they're expected to have saved. Schools allow for some wiggle room if you have extenuating circumstances like very high medical expenses.

"STOP telling people what they should have saved. You have NO idea what their personal situation aside from salary in the door (before taxes) is."

It doesn’t matter why they didn’t save but it does affect how much they can spend on sending their kids to college and therefore where they can afford to go. There are plenty of less expensive schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s the parents who didn’t themselves go to T20 schools that overstate their importance. It’s not the golden meal ticket you think it is, the majority of students at these schools still have painfully average careers.

Both myself and my partner attending T10 schools. We have never used any connections from those schools once we graduated. Yes, I'll admit that graduating in the early 90s, we both benefited from the school, in that not as many companies were hiring but we found jobs since companies were still going to these schools. However, I went on at least 10, 2nd interviews at larger companies (including Ford, Anderson,Bell Labs etc) and at least half the interviewees at these sessions were not T20 students. At the company who ultimately hired me, our incoming group of new hires (we knew each other as we lived together for summer then went off to grad school in fall), only 30-40% were from T20 schools, rest were from T60-80 schools, and at least 20% outside of those ranges, even in a difficult time to find a job.

But after our first jobs, we have NEVER used connections/alumni networks to get jobs. All future jobs have come because of the hard work, dedication we have done. Literally nobody asks about where you went to undergrad----they want to hear about your projects, and references from people who've worked with you. And even with our first jobs, we got hired because we both had over 3.9GPA in engineering at T10 schools---we earned our jobs by doing well. And my data points indicate that we would have still found jobs even if at a T100 school, because we would have networked/used resources until we landed a job because that's our work ethic.

I did my undergrad at a mediocre school in another country, worked and moved to the US for grad school (at an average state school), eventually switching over to IT management. I do find kids coming out of these 'hoity toity' schools to be smart, well spoken and present themselves very well but for any work needing experience, I could care less about their educational pedigree.

My kids will likely end up in CS or adjacent fields (I'm shepherding them in that direction unless they show strong interest in something else) where a good chunk of the hiring managers would be like me, foreigners who 'grew up' in corporate America. They only care about performance and wouldn't care two hoots about a top school.

What I keep hearing is that there are certain opportunities (e.g. Investment banking) that are more open to kids from top schools than to other kids. For example, will Goldman Sachs or a boutique wall street firm be more willing to hire a student from, say Williams, who's an average student vs. say a student at the 75th percentile from Virginia Tech, assuming the same degree and resume profile?

Investment banking and PE firms the two most well known industries where it does matter where you attending undergrad/grad school. They are an "old boys network" for 70-80% of the people. However, it is possible to break into them---getting a grad degree from the right place will assist with that. That said, I'm fairly certain they do hire people from other schools, just not as many.
But I'm with you, for the majority of jobs (95%+) I care about performance, teamwork, etc. I don't care that you graduated from Harvard or Oregon St---I care how well you code, do you work well with the team, do you get your work done on-time, how well you adjust to new situations, can you make presentation or write a document well, etc.