FA - real life

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t bother reading all 25 pages, but I’ll share our FA experience. We are a HHI less than 200k, hovering around 180k. We live in upper MoCo and our children were zoned for a school with known gang problems and very high FARMS. Our oldest started in the public for k and one, but then we transferred to a Catholic K-8 almost 25min away for many reasons. We received $500 from the ADW then. For HS, my kids received 50% tuition off. We couldn’t have afforded it otherwise. We couldn’t sell our house for years bc we were upside down, and our local public was seriously unsafe.

I don’t feel guilty one bit receiving FA. We applied, we received. My husband is blue collar, I’m a teacher. We work hard. Very hard. If we could’ve moved to a safer public, we would’ve, but we couldn’t, so we made the best decision we could for our family.

Why couldn’t you move? I don’t understand why you live in such an unsafe area and attend private school. Wouldn’t you be better off in a decent suburb and in public school?

Gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t bother reading all 25 pages, but I’ll share our FA experience. We are a HHI less than 200k, hovering around 180k. We live in upper MoCo and our children were zoned for a school with known gang problems and very high FARMS. Our oldest started in the public for k and one, but then we transferred to a Catholic K-8 almost 25min away for many reasons. We received $500 from the ADW then. For HS, my kids received 50% tuition off. We couldn’t have afforded it otherwise. We couldn’t sell our house for years bc we were upside down, and our local public was seriously unsafe.

I don’t feel guilty one bit receiving FA. We applied, we received. My husband is blue collar, I’m a teacher. We work hard. Very hard. If we could’ve moved to a safer public, we would’ve, but we couldn’t, so we made the best decision we could for our family.

Why couldn’t you move? I don’t understand why you live in such an unsafe area and attend private school. Wouldn’t you be better off in a decent suburb and in public school?

Just sell your house and buy a new one!! It's not like it costs 5-6% of your home value to do that, not to mention living expenses. And if someone just bought and/or the market goes down, they'll be underwater and unable to sell.

I mean, no one accused the troll of being intelligent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t bother reading all 25 pages, but I’ll share our FA experience. We are a HHI less than 200k, hovering around 180k. We live in upper MoCo and our children were zoned for a school with known gang problems and very high FARMS. Our oldest started in the public for k and one, but then we transferred to a Catholic K-8 almost 25min away for many reasons. We received $500 from the ADW then. For HS, my kids received 50% tuition off. We couldn’t have afforded it otherwise. We couldn’t sell our house for years bc we were upside down, and our local public was seriously unsafe.

I don’t feel guilty one bit receiving FA. We applied, we received. My husband is blue collar, I’m a teacher. We work hard. Very hard. If we could’ve moved to a safer public, we would’ve, but we couldn’t, so we made the best decision we could for our family.

Why couldn’t you move? I don’t understand why you live in such an unsafe area and attend private school. Wouldn’t you be better off in a decent suburb and in public school?

Gross.

People take losses on real estate all the time. I wouldn’t have kids in an unsafe area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t bother reading all 25 pages, but I’ll share our FA experience. We are a HHI less than 200k, hovering around 180k. We live in upper MoCo and our children were zoned for a school with known gang problems and very high FARMS. Our oldest started in the public for k and one, but then we transferred to a Catholic K-8 almost 25min away for many reasons. We received $500 from the ADW then. For HS, my kids received 50% tuition off. We couldn’t have afforded it otherwise. We couldn’t sell our house for years bc we were upside down, and our local public was seriously unsafe.

I don’t feel guilty one bit receiving FA. We applied, we received. My husband is blue collar, I’m a teacher. We work hard. Very hard. If we could’ve moved to a safer public, we would’ve, but we couldn’t, so we made the best decision we could for our family.

Why couldn’t you move? I don’t understand why you live in such an unsafe area and attend private school. Wouldn’t you be better off in a decent suburb and in public school?

Just sell your house and buy a new one!! It's not like it costs 5-6% of your home value to do that, not to mention living expenses. And if someone just bought and/or the market goes down, they'll be underwater and unable to sell.

I mean, no one accused the troll of being intelligent.

Paying private school tuition for multiple kids is probably much more expensive than the real estate loss. It doesn’t take much intelligence to see that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t bother reading all 25 pages, but I’ll share our FA experience. We are a HHI less than 200k, hovering around 180k. We live in upper MoCo and our children were zoned for a school with known gang problems and very high FARMS. Our oldest started in the public for k and one, but then we transferred to a Catholic K-8 almost 25min away for many reasons. We received $500 from the ADW then. For HS, my kids received 50% tuition off. We couldn’t have afforded it otherwise. We couldn’t sell our house for years bc we were upside down, and our local public was seriously unsafe.

I don’t feel guilty one bit receiving FA. We applied, we received. My husband is blue collar, I’m a teacher. We work hard. Very hard. If we could’ve moved to a safer public, we would’ve, but we couldn’t, so we made the best decision we could for our family.

Why couldn’t you move? I don’t understand why you live in such an unsafe area and attend private school. Wouldn’t you be better off in a decent suburb and in public school?

Just sell your house and buy a new one!! It's not like it costs 5-6% of your home value to do that, not to mention living expenses. And if someone just bought and/or the market goes down, they'll be underwater and unable to sell.

I mean, no one accused the troll of being intelligent.

Paying private school tuition for multiple kids is probably much more expensive than the real estate loss. It doesn’t take much intelligence to see that.

These people did Catholic school at 50% aid. That’s like $10,000 a year. If PP owned an 800k house, the commission alone would be $40,000. Then they’d have to come up with the amount they’re underwater by—maybe 10%—so another $80,000. Then add all the taxes and fees and several thousand to move. They’d need to be able to put up something like 150k to sell. 10k a year is a lot cheaper!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t bother reading all 25 pages, but I’ll share our FA experience. We are a HHI less than 200k, hovering around 180k. We live in upper MoCo and our children were zoned for a school with known gang problems and very high FARMS. Our oldest started in the public for k and one, but then we transferred to a Catholic K-8 almost 25min away for many reasons. We received $500 from the ADW then. For HS, my kids received 50% tuition off. We couldn’t have afforded it otherwise. We couldn’t sell our house for years bc we were upside down, and our local public was seriously unsafe.

I don’t feel guilty one bit receiving FA. We applied, we received. My husband is blue collar, I’m a teacher. We work hard. Very hard. If we could’ve moved to a safer public, we would’ve, but we couldn’t, so we made the best decision we could for our family.

Why couldn’t you move? I don’t understand why you live in such an unsafe area and attend private school. Wouldn’t you be better off in a decent suburb and in public school?

Just sell your house and buy a new one!! It's not like it costs 5-6% of your home value to do that, not to mention living expenses. And if someone just bought and/or the market goes down, they'll be underwater and unable to sell.

I mean, no one accused the troll of being intelligent.

Paying private school tuition for multiple kids is probably much more expensive than the real estate loss. It doesn’t take much intelligence to see that.

These people did Catholic school at 50% aid. That’s like $10,000 a year. If PP owned an 800k house, the commission alone would be $40,000. Then they’d have to come up with the amount they’re underwater by—maybe 10%—so another $80,000. Then add all the taxes and fees and several thousand to move. They’d need to be able to put up something like 150k to sell. 10k a year is a lot cheaper!!

From 2 to 12 grade for the oldest plus siblings means that tuition is more expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t bother reading all 25 pages, but I’ll share our FA experience. We are a HHI less than 200k, hovering around 180k. We live in upper MoCo and our children were zoned for a school with known gang problems and very high FARMS. Our oldest started in the public for k and one, but then we transferred to a Catholic K-8 almost 25min away for many reasons. We received $500 from the ADW then. For HS, my kids received 50% tuition off. We couldn’t have afforded it otherwise. We couldn’t sell our house for years bc we were upside down, and our local public was seriously unsafe.

I don’t feel guilty one bit receiving FA. We applied, we received. My husband is blue collar, I’m a teacher. We work hard. Very hard. If we could’ve moved to a safer public, we would’ve, but we couldn’t, so we made the best decision we could for our family.

Why couldn’t you move? I don’t understand why you live in such an unsafe area and attend private school. Wouldn’t you be better off in a decent suburb and in public school?

Just sell your house and buy a new one!! It's not like it costs 5-6% of your home value to do that, not to mention living expenses. And if someone just bought and/or the market goes down, they'll be underwater and unable to sell.

I mean, no one accused the troll of being intelligent.

Paying private school tuition for multiple kids is probably much more expensive than the real estate loss. It doesn’t take much intelligence to see that.

These people did Catholic school at 50% aid. That’s like $10,000 a year. If PP owned an 800k house, the commission alone would be $40,000. Then they’d have to come up with the amount they’re underwater by—maybe 10%—so another $80,000. Then add all the taxes and fees and several thousand to move. They’d need to be able to put up something like 150k to sell. 10k a year is a lot cheaper!!

Plus if you don't have the amount you're underwater by then you simply can't afford to sell. Maybe you spend $120k over 12 years on tuition, but that's a trickle as oppossd to a lump sum. You didn't have the $80k all at once, so paying it wasn't an option.

[Anonymous]

As if my home was worth 800k. Not a chance. It’s not worth that. Not close, but it’s finally worth more than we bought for. Finally. BUT then what. Where do we move? We can’t afford an 800k home. We can only afford 500-600k. Not even 600k if I’m being honest. Where we can we find that in a SAFE place? No where. So, we stay where we are. My oldest is a sophomore in college and my youngest a senior in HS. We have selected colleges that give good merit and live within our means. We are truly the middle class, IMO.

Picking up and moving isn’t as easy as people make it sound.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As if my home was worth 800k. Not a chance. It’s not worth that. Not close, but it’s finally worth more than we bought for. Finally. BUT then what. Where do we move? We can’t afford an 800k home. We can only afford 500-600k. Not even 600k if I’m being honest. Where we can we find that in a SAFE place? No where. So, we stay where we are. My oldest is a sophomore in college and my youngest a senior in HS. We have selected colleges that give good merit and live within our means. We are truly the middle class, IMO.

Picking up and moving isn’t as easy as people make it sound.

Give me a break. There are trade offs to everything. You just don’t want a longer commute or a townhome/condo or a school district with more URMs or to uproot your kid from their friends.

There are plenty of options for that budget. You just don’t like them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We chose not to have a third kid because we couldn’t do that and send our current two to private school. We are full pay. I don’t donate because of families like you- why should you get the third kid that we chose responsibly not to have?

If it really makes you so upset, consider not giving the institution that created these policies hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You sound so jealous.

OP has every right to follow the rules and apply, as long as she is not misrepresenting her financial position to the school then I have no issue with it.

I also have no issue with schools who give no aid to anyone ever. Do those even exist? They would probably be better aligned to your values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As if my home was worth 800k. Not a chance. It’s not worth that. Not close, but it’s finally worth more than we bought for. Finally. BUT then what. Where do we move? We can’t afford an 800k home. We can only afford 500-600k. Not even 600k if I’m being honest. Where we can we find that in a SAFE place? No where. So, we stay where we are. My oldest is a sophomore in college and my youngest a senior in HS. We have selected colleges that give good merit and live within our means. We are truly the middle class, IMO.

Picking up and moving isn’t as easy as people make it sound.

Give me a break. There are trade offs to everything. You just don’t want a longer commute or a townhome/condo or a school district with more URMs or to uproot your kid from their friends.

There are plenty of options for that budget. You just don’t like them.

Longer commute and uprooting your kid and having enough space are all valid concerns!

It's really clear from PP's reaction to this scenario - family making less than $200k, public option is subpar - that they think no one should get FA. The only FA they'd support is for hypothetical poorer kids who are not at the school. If one of those kids did end up at the school somehow, PPs would declare that they, too, had it too easy and could afford private if they did x, y, and z or better public if they moved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As if my home was worth 800k. Not a chance. It’s not worth that. Not close, but it’s finally worth more than we bought for. Finally. BUT then what. Where do we move? We can’t afford an 800k home. We can only afford 500-600k. Not even 600k if I’m being honest. Where we can we find that in a SAFE place? No where. So, we stay where we are. My oldest is a sophomore in college and my youngest a senior in HS. We have selected colleges that give good merit and live within our means. We are truly the middle class, IMO.

Picking up and moving isn’t as easy as people make it sound.

Give me a break. There are trade offs to everything. You just don’t want a longer commute or a townhome/condo or a school district with more URMs or to uproot your kid from their friends.

There are plenty of options for that budget. You just don’t like them.

Longer commute and uprooting your kid and having enough space are all valid concerns!

It's really clear from PP's reaction to this scenario - family making less than $200k, public option is subpar - that they think no one should get FA. The only FA they'd support is for hypothetical poorer kids who are not at the school. If one of those kids did end up at the school somehow, PPs would declare that they, too, had it too easy and could afford private if they did x, y, and z or better public if they moved.

Of course they are valid concerns! But all of life is tradeoffs.

I’m sick and tired of people sobbing about how they can’t afford housing when they clearly can.

This is irrelevant to the debate on if privates should give FA to middle income people.

I agree with you that many people here just don’t want any FA at all. Which is a perfectly valid position to have, even if I don’t agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As if my home was worth 800k. Not a chance. It’s not worth that. Not close, but it’s finally worth more than we bought for. Finally. BUT then what. Where do we move? We can’t afford an 800k home. We can only afford 500-600k. Not even 600k if I’m being honest. Where we can we find that in a SAFE place? No where. So, we stay where we are. My oldest is a sophomore in college and my youngest a senior in HS. We have selected colleges that give good merit and live within our means. We are truly the middle class, IMO.

Picking up and moving isn’t as easy as people make it sound.

Give me a break. There are trade offs to everything. You just don’t want a longer commute or a townhome/condo or a school district with more URMs or to uproot your kid from their friends.

There are plenty of options for that budget. You just don’t like them.

Longer commute and uprooting your kid and having enough space are all valid concerns!

It's really clear from PP's reaction to this scenario - family making less than $200k, public option is subpar - that they think no one should get FA. The only FA they'd support is for hypothetical poorer kids who are not at the school. If one of those kids did end up at the school somehow, PPs would declare that they, too, had it too easy and could afford private if they did x, y, and z or better public if they moved.

This. The argument is just a bunch of moralizers wanting to tell other people how they should live. It has nothing to do with FA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As if my home was worth 800k. Not a chance. It’s not worth that. Not close, but it’s finally worth more than we bought for. Finally. BUT then what. Where do we move? We can’t afford an 800k home. We can only afford 500-600k. Not even 600k if I’m being honest. Where we can we find that in a SAFE place? No where. So, we stay where we are. My oldest is a sophomore in college and my youngest a senior in HS. We have selected colleges that give good merit and live within our means. We are truly the middle class, IMO.

Picking up and moving isn’t as easy as people make it sound.

Give me a break. There are trade offs to everything. You just don’t want a longer commute or a townhome/condo or a school district with more URMs or to uproot your kid from their friends.

There are plenty of options for that budget. You just don’t like them.

Longer commute and uprooting your kid and having enough space are all valid concerns!

It's really clear from PP's reaction to this scenario - family making less than $200k, public option is subpar - that they think no one should get FA. The only FA they'd support is for hypothetical poorer kids who are not at the school. If one of those kids did end up at the school somehow, PPs would declare that they, too, had it too easy and could afford private if they did x, y, and z or better public if they moved.

Of course they are valid concerns! But all of life is tradeoffs.

I’m sick and tired of people sobbing about how they can’t afford housing when they clearly can.

This is irrelevant to the debate on if privates should give FA to middle income people[b].

That's not a real debate. The schools do in fact give that aid. PP can in fact afford private with that aid. You don't get a vote in whether she gets aid, so we're not debating anything.

You are just berating people who are doing the best they can for their kids, because you need to feel superior about something. You like to think you would make different choices than PP, but you haven't had to actually face those IRL and almost certainly would do the same things if you were in the same situation.

[Anonymous]

Btw my commute sucks. I live in upper MoCo and work in DC. I teach. My husband is blue collar. He drives all over kingdom come.