Anonymous wrote:We will be happily paying 90K for our DC to attend Northwestern this fall. We are currently paying 70K/year for a SLAC ranked in the 30s with a merit scholarship for our other child.
Leaving out the Ivys, schools we have toured that we would have paid 90K for without reservation include:
Brown
Wesleyan
Duke
WashU
Vanderbilt
The truth is we would pay that amount for the school that is the best fit for our children. It would have been begrudgingly at some schools and comparisons with schools that came in below with merit would be made along with a discussion of value. That said, I expect those schools would have offered some merit to our students.
For our student that we are paying less for we are planning to put any difference towards grad school for her.
Our kids went to public school k-12. We are (I think) a donut hole family. We pay with a combination of savings and cashflow.
If we had to borrow any of the money it would be a different conversation. Net worth about 5M+, we are 8-10 years from retirement.
You are not a donut hole family, you have five million dollars.
Even if 1mm of that is not liquid (house), you have enormous resources.
Full freight for four years at (e.g.) NYU for two Larlings is less than 25% of your net worth.
This conversation is not about you, homey.
How nasty you are.
The question was what is worth 90K/year. Without knowing resources the question is meaningless. If we had less and our child got into a top 10 school we would qualify for financial aid and be paying a lot less than 90K/year.
I am a long term, admittedly senior, fed. UMC in a HCOL city. Isn’t that the definition of donut hole? With fewer resources we would get financial aid. I know we won’t get financial aid and that is because we had the ability to save and we chose to save.
DP.
No.
Please define donut hole where families with incomes above $200K/year are getting substantial financial aid.
The vast majority of our NW is retirement savings and home equity.
Anonymous wrote:We will be happily paying 90K for our DC to attend Northwestern this fall. We are currently paying 70K/year for a SLAC ranked in the 30s with a merit scholarship for our other child.
Leaving out the Ivys, schools we have toured that we would have paid 90K for without reservation include:
Brown
Wesleyan
Duke
WashU
Vanderbilt
The truth is we would pay that amount for the school that is the best fit for our children. It would have been begrudgingly at some schools and comparisons with schools that came in below with merit would be made along with a discussion of value. That said, I expect those schools would have offered some merit to our students.
For our student that we are paying less for we are planning to put any difference towards grad school for her.
Our kids went to public school k-12. We are (I think) a donut hole family. We pay with a combination of savings and cashflow.
If we had to borrow any of the money it would be a different conversation. Net worth about 5M+, we are 8-10 years from retirement.
You are not a donut hole family, you have five million dollars.
Even if 1mm of that is not liquid (house), you have enormous resources.
Full freight for four years at (e.g.) NYU for two Larlings is less than 25% of your net worth.
This conversation is not about you, homey.
How nasty you are.
The question was what is worth 90K/year. Without knowing resources the question is meaningless. If we had less and our child got into a top 10 school we would qualify for financial aid and be paying a lot less than 90K/year.
I am a long term, admittedly senior, fed. UMC in a HCOL city. Isn’t that the definition of donut hole? With fewer resources we would get financial aid. I know we won’t get financial aid and that is because we had the ability to save and we chose to save.
DP.
No.
Please define donut hole where families with incomes above $200K/year are getting substantial financial aid.
The vast majority of our NW is retirement savings and home equity.
Call me too literally but I just wanted a list of colleges people think are of high enough quality to be worth $90k if one could afford it.
Is this your first appearance after 25 pages of chaos? 😂
OP - I was shocked! 😳 Still hoping for some college names 😂
Pretty much the ones in top parts of USNWR et al lists.
Always with the caveat of “if you can afford it”.
Yeah, I would probably say the top 15 on that list, maybe 20. But it falls off quickly.
OP - thanks to everyone who has replied.
Please don’t fight. We’re all trying our best. Ultimately we all want the same things and the world is big enough for all our kids to be successful.
you sound nice. so I think you should use your own best judgment to decide what's best for you and your family. This really is not a question that lends well to ask-the-audience.
Anonymous wrote:We will be happily paying 90K for our DC to attend Northwestern this fall. We are currently paying 70K/year for a SLAC ranked in the 30s with a merit scholarship for our other child.
Leaving out the Ivys, schools we have toured that we would have paid 90K for without reservation include:
Brown
Wesleyan
Duke
WashU
Vanderbilt
The truth is we would pay that amount for the school that is the best fit for our children. It would have been begrudgingly at some schools and comparisons with schools that came in below with merit would be made along with a discussion of value. That said, I expect those schools would have offered some merit to our students.
For our student that we are paying less for we are planning to put any difference towards grad school for her.
Our kids went to public school k-12. We are (I think) a donut hole family. We pay with a combination of savings and cashflow.
If we had to borrow any of the money it would be a different conversation. Net worth about 5M+, we are 8-10 years from retirement.
You are not a donut hole family, you have five million dollars.
Even if 1mm of that is not liquid (house), you have enormous resources.
Full freight for four years at (e.g.) NYU for two Larlings is less than 25% of your net worth.
This conversation is not about you, homey.
How nasty you are.
The question was what is worth 90K/year. Without knowing resources the question is meaningless. If we had less and our child got into a top 10 school we would qualify for financial aid and be paying a lot less than 90K/year.
I am a long term, admittedly senior, fed. UMC in a HCOL city. Isn’t that the definition of donut hole? With fewer resources we would get financial aid. I know we won’t get financial aid and that is because we had the ability to save and we chose to save.
DP.
No.
Please define donut hole where families with incomes above $200K/year are getting substantial financial aid.
The vast majority of our NW is retirement savings and home equity.
Our youngest attends and is really enjoying it and it does seem like they are getting more opportunities for internships than our eldest who attended a large public college (and loved it!).
OTOH, it is a staggering amount of money. I guess we won't really know if it was worth it until the youngest graduates and we can see whether they find a good job, etc. Stats show that MIT grads generally have excellent job prospects.
Most do. I know a recent grad who is stuck, but she lied that she had done my daughter’s project (she decided to apply to MIT only after my daughter started this project and it is on her LinkedIn! There is a long story there.) so I’m not surprised. She did not have any internships that she has got on her own either — just through contacts, which is OK but you’d think an MIT student would do better than a low IT professional. My daughter was also admitted to MIT but turned it down for her dream school.
Anonymous wrote:We will be happily paying 90K for our DC to attend Northwestern this fall. We are currently paying 70K/year for a SLAC ranked in the 30s with a merit scholarship for our other child.
Leaving out the Ivys, schools we have toured that we would have paid 90K for without reservation include:
Brown
Wesleyan
Duke
WashU
Vanderbilt
The truth is we would pay that amount for the school that is the best fit for our children. It would have been begrudgingly at some schools and comparisons with schools that came in below with merit would be made along with a discussion of value. That said, I expect those schools would have offered some merit to our students.
For our student that we are paying less for we are planning to put any difference towards grad school for her.
Our kids went to public school k-12. We are (I think) a donut hole family. We pay with a combination of savings and cashflow.
If we had to borrow any of the money it would be a different conversation. Net worth about 5M+, we are 8-10 years from retirement.
You are not a donut hole family, you have five million dollars.
Even if 1mm of that is not liquid (house), you have enormous resources.
Full freight for four years at (e.g.) NYU for two Larlings is less than 25% of your net worth.
This conversation is not about you, homey.
How nasty you are.
The question was what is worth 90K/year. Without knowing resources the question is meaningless. If we had less and our child got into a top 10 school we would qualify for financial aid and be paying a lot less than 90K/year.
I am a long term, admittedly senior, fed. UMC in a HCOL city. Isn’t that the definition of donut hole? With fewer resources we would get financial aid. I know we won’t get financial aid and that is because we had the ability to save and we chose to save.
DP.
No.
Please define donut hole where families with incomes above $200K/year are getting substantial financial aid.
The vast majority of our NW is retirement savings and home equity.
Donut hole families earn too much W2 income to qualify for financial aid yet don’t earn enough income/have enough income independent wealth to realistically save for/pay out of pocket for full freight.
So if you have 5M, no, you’re not a donut hole family.
Anonymous wrote:We will be happily paying 90K for our DC to attend Northwestern this fall. We are currently paying 70K/year for a SLAC ranked in the 30s with a merit scholarship for our other child.
Leaving out the Ivys, schools we have toured that we would have paid 90K for without reservation include:
Brown
Wesleyan
Duke
WashU
Vanderbilt
The truth is we would pay that amount for the school that is the best fit for our children. It would have been begrudgingly at some schools and comparisons with schools that came in below with merit would be made along with a discussion of value. That said, I expect those schools would have offered some merit to our students.
For our student that we are paying less for we are planning to put any difference towards grad school for her.
Our kids went to public school k-12. We are (I think) a donut hole family. We pay with a combination of savings and cashflow.
If we had to borrow any of the money it would be a different conversation. Net worth about 5M+, we are 8-10 years from retirement.
You are not a donut hole family, you have five million dollars.
Even if 1mm of that is not liquid (house), you have enormous resources.
Full freight for four years at (e.g.) NYU for two Larlings is less than 25% of your net worth.
This conversation is not about you, homey.
How nasty you are.
The question was what is worth 90K/year. Without knowing resources the question is meaningless. If we had less and our child got into a top 10 school we would qualify for financial aid and be paying a lot less than 90K/year.
I am a long term, admittedly senior, fed. UMC in a HCOL city. Isn’t that the definition of donut hole? With fewer resources we would get financial aid. I know we won’t get financial aid and that is because we had the ability to save and we chose to save.
DP.
No.
Please define donut hole where families with incomes above $200K/year are getting substantial financial aid.
The vast majority of our NW is retirement savings and home equity.
Us, at a T15 SLAC!
[b]
Financial aid, or merit. What was your EFC in FAFSA. We were a $200k a year family and our EFC was 100% =1 no financial and and because DD. Was applying to top schools, received no merit aid - so we were full pay at every elite school DC applied to.
Anonymous wrote:I am not interested in judging how other people spend their money. Showing off wealth is a life style sure.
I am just really curious why college tuition keep increasing yoy, it is not even tied to any performance benchmark.
Sounds like you aren’t interested in looking further than your navel.
Are you really not aware of how these schools spend money and why tuition has gone up?
Low class ratios and nice facilities don’t grow on trees.
Also, much of the student experience is subjective. It isn’t just what you learn, but how you feel about the experience. Also, remember most kids are not paying full freight. The rich are subsidizing the less-well-off.
Did you know that in a study participants were presented with two glasses of wine and told one is from a $100 bottle and one is from a $20 bottle (roughly), and they consistently rated the $100 wine much higher across every metric?
The trick? It’s the exact same wine.
LOL, nice try. That trick might work for wine, but it won’t work for something you have to live and breathe for 4 years.
Have someone look at a $650,000 old 1000 square foot house and then a $1.2 mil updated 2500 square foot house in the same area. But switch the price tags and try to trick them!
Do you really think that someone will believe that the fake “$1.2 mil” 1000 square foot house is “better” than the updated 2500 square foot house because it has a higher price tag?
I get your point, since I have a relative who refuses to buy store-brand foods because she believes them inferior. But hardly comparable to the bigger ticket items and experiences in life.
The bigger, more expensive, updated house might be a total POS and the older, less expensive, smaller house might be a charming well-crafted quality home. I could EASILY believe the price tags could be switched and you’d have people calling it fair. I’m shocked that you can’t.
Are you a product of a school that would be 90K today, by any chance?
I think you kind of proved my point. So the 2500 house might be a POS, yes, that is one possibility. The bigger point is that in comparing these houses and their prices, one might be prompted to ask questions and investigate, and ask WHY the seemingly nicer home is priced lower.
You would ask questions, you would get inspections done, you compare property taxes, schools, and myriad other things.
You would not simply accept at face value that the home with the higher price is better or worse, right?
That was not remotely your point. See the bolded word for a clue as to where you’ve gone wrong. Hint: In your argument as presented YOU have accepted one house as better than the other based on price and rather arbitrary criteria such as how new and how big, none of which suggests any concern about real quality or value. To you, expensive + big + new = better. There are people on the other side of the coin to whom expensive + small + old = better. So I repeat, I could EASILY believe the price tags could be switched and significant chunk of the population would evaluate accordingly. (e.g. Small, old, inexpensive is gross; small, old, and expensive is classic and charming. Big, new, and expensive = luxurious; hug, new, inexpensive = builder grade garbage that will fall apart in five years.)
“Do you really think that someone will believe that the fake “$1.2 mil” 1000 square foot house is “better” than the updated 2500 square foot house because it has a higher price tag?”
I must ask again, are you a product of one of these expensive institutions?
Nope, I went to an inexpensive college no one in DCUM ever talks about, and have no debt. Must be why I’m such a stupid old sod, eh?
You are right about new construction being generally not that great, so maybe this isn’t the best example. But you are still FOS on principal.
I’ll try again: let’s say you are planning a vacation to Mexico for spring break. You can spend 2k or 15k. You can have a wonderful experience either way. It will be a different experience at 2k (less-than-ideal flights, riding public buses, staying in cheap hotels, enjoying walking around a city, eating local food) or 15k (ideally timed nonstop flight, private transit, expensive resorts and activities) but either way, you will have taken a vacation to Mexico. By your logic, they are the same thing, right? A vacation to Mexico is a vacation to Mexico. So you’re wondering why would anyone ever do the 15k version, or are you just insisting they only do it due to the perception of luxury?
Yes, assuming some minimum baseline is met (in this case having a wonderful experience) they are in fact the same thing except your luxurious version costs five times as much.
But I’m FOS because? You don’t like what I’m saying?
Ah, ok. Well that explains your way of thinking.
An apartment is the same as a house because they both give you a place to live.
A Kia Soul the same as a Lexus RX because they both get you from A to B.
Illinois State the same as Yale because you can get a BS at both.
So you’re right, if your goal is to simply get the degree in hand, then cheaper is better.
What you don’t seem to understand or acknowledge is that many, probably most people care about many more things than simply getting the degree in hand.
We are not full pay at our kid’s 90k sticker price school, but I am paying more than our cheapest option because the school DS will attend has retention and graduation rates in the high 90s, as well as an extremely high grad acceptance rate in his desired post baccalaureate program.
Additionally, it is a smaller school where the higher staff to student ratio will make it easier to build meaningful relationships with faculty. DS plays his sport there, giving him a built-in friend group and structure. It is worth it to us to pay more for these things that we value, and I can see how a wealthier family would be willing to pay up to 90k for similar reasons. My son will not have loans, and it was a priority for us to get him through college without loans. Having had loans and spent my 20s paying them off, it did limit me somewhat and I don’t want that for him. If it had come down to that, he would be attending another school to avoid loans. And I would bet that the vast majority of families going through this process right now are not as willing to obtain debt as they might have 20 years ago, because they are now seeing how a degree no longer guarantees a high income.
If you don’t care about other people’s reasons to pay more, fine. No one is forcing you to pay 90k anywhere, or even 45k or 30k. Just go to the cheaper school, because it’s the same to you anyway.
You’re mixing your analogies, ma’am. You sound totally unhinged. A wonderful vacation is a wonderful vacation. The expensive version might indeed be even MORE wonderful, but is it 13k more wonderful? Is it five years worth of also wonderful vacations more wonderful?
Apartments and houses are both places to live, so in that sense they are the same. Apartments are often BETTER than houses, if you can believe it! Once again, your silly housing analogy doesn’t take into account quality or value, so YOU are the one missing the point here. Would you rather live in an apartment in Paris or a giant house in rural Kentucky? You can prioritize what you like, but to declare that one is obviously better because it’s a house is stupid.
The things you talk about are akin to saying the expensive car is obviously worth it because it has a steering wheel and a radio. Or the house is better than the apartment because it has a toilet and a sink. Again, you can get a good education at most colleges and universities. You can build relationships with faculty and peers, you can participate in sports and other activities, you can graduate on time and go on to grad school.
You’re arguing that the brand of toilet is what makes the house better than the apartment, and the sad part is you don’t even realize it.
I’m genuinely confused now.
The bolded is the exact opposite of what I would say. I would say that the more expensive car would be worth it to someone who can afford it and values a quiet interior with less road noise, more comfortable seating, and a longer lasting and highly reliable car.
Of course, you are going to come back and say “Gotcha! the expensive car is actually garbage! The engine is full of sawdust!!” because that seems to be your game.
The steering wheel and the radio are the basics, honey. Just like establishing relationships with faculty, making friends, participating in extracurriculars, and graduating on time are the basics of any decent school (including even non-flagship state schools).
What else you got?
Except that at a lot of those schools, even ones I would send my kid to if those were our choices, don’t have the same levels of retention and 4 year graduation, nor the same career outcomes. Lucky for us it worked out to go to the one that does.
[b]These outcomes are entirely dependent on your child. Do you not believe your kid is capable of graduating on time? Are you paying 90K for school because he needs a babysitter to hold his hand for four years? I suppose that at least would be a valid reason to pay more…
You didn’t read. You didn’t bold property. She said 1) lower levels of retention; 2) lower four year graduation rates and 3) poorer career outcomes. Note the latter, please. Think before you shoot your mouth off and insult the OP. Those are all valid concerns and have nothing to do g to do with the constitutional makeup on OP’s kid.
Anonymous wrote:We will be happily paying 90K for our DC to attend Northwestern this fall. We are currently paying 70K/year for a SLAC ranked in the 30s with a merit scholarship for our other child.
Leaving out the Ivys, schools we have toured that we would have paid 90K for without reservation include:
Brown
Wesleyan
Duke
WashU
Vanderbilt
The truth is we would pay that amount for the school that is the best fit for our children. It would have been begrudgingly at some schools and comparisons with schools that came in below with merit would be made along with a discussion of value. That said, I expect those schools would have offered some merit to our students.
For our student that we are paying less for we are planning to put any difference towards grad school for her.
Our kids went to public school k-12. We are (I think) a donut hole family. We pay with a combination of savings and cashflow.
If we had to borrow any of the money it would be a different conversation. Net worth about 5M+, we are 8-10 years from retirement.
You are not a donut hole family, you have five million dollars.
Even if 1mm of that is not liquid (house), you have enormous resources.
Full freight for four years at (e.g.) NYU for two Larlings is less than 25% of your net worth.
This conversation is not about you, homey.
So out of 5 mil , I would guess about 25-30% is primary home. Exclude that and we are left with ~ 3 mil. Now stock market can easily sell off 50% so I would discount 1.5 mil from that. Now at 1.5 mil it is doable but not as effortlessly as we thought earlier
+1 Once you take out home equity (we have a second home and not willing to sell it or take out another mortgage) and retirement accounts, even $3-4M in liquid assets isn't enough to happily pay $1.2M for college when we're close to retirement. Plus market fluctuation for the securities and real estate markets could seriously decimate a chunk of our assets at any time.
I completely understand why we're not eligible for FA, but we're not willing to pay $90K+ per year. Of course part of this equation is what DC's alternatives are. Luckily DC was able to secure a very generous athletic package, so DC turned down some top schools that only offer FA and would be full pay for us. There were other factors too, such as much stronger support for athletes at the schools that offer athletic scholarships and still similar career outcomes for DC's field. Plus DC likes the idea of getting paid for their sport.
I don’t know if I can stomach paying that much, but so far we’re not limiting our kid in where she can apply. We’re in DC, so no instate school. I’m eyeing the public with lower OOS tuition that aren’t impossible. Our hhi is under $300k and we have one other kid. I have enough in a 529 to cover most state schools, but not Michigan or ucla.
Any school our kids want to attend that costs $90k. We never earned more than $240k, now less since one of us is laid off, but always prioritized saving for college. We have enough saved
Anonymous wrote:We will be happily paying 90K for our DC to attend Northwestern this fall. We are currently paying 70K/year for a SLAC ranked in the 30s with a merit scholarship for our other child.
Leaving out the Ivys, schools we have toured that we would have paid 90K for without reservation include:
Brown
Wesleyan
Duke
WashU
Vanderbilt
The truth is we would pay that amount for the school that is the best fit for our children. It would have been begrudgingly at some schools and comparisons with schools that came in below with merit would be made along with a discussion of value. That said, I expect those schools would have offered some merit to our students.
For our student that we are paying less for we are planning to put any difference towards grad school for her.
Our kids went to public school k-12. We are (I think) a donut hole family. We pay with a combination of savings and cashflow.
If we had to borrow any of the money it would be a different conversation. Net worth about 5M+, we are 8-10 years from retirement.
You are not a donut hole family, you have five million dollars.
Even if 1mm of that is not liquid (house), you have enormous resources.
Full freight for four years at (e.g.) NYU for two Larlings is less than 25% of your net worth.
This conversation is not about you, homey.
How nasty you are.
The question was what is worth 90K/year. Without knowing resources the question is meaningless. If we had less and our child got into a top 10 school we would qualify for financial aid and be paying a lot less than 90K/year.
I am a long term, admittedly senior, fed. UMC in a HCOL city. Isn’t that the definition of donut hole? With fewer resources we would get financial aid. I know we won’t get financial aid and that is because we had the ability to save and we chose to save.
DP.
No.
Please define donut hole where families with incomes above $200K/year are getting substantial financial aid.
The vast majority of our NW is retirement savings and home equity.
Ivies, Chicago, JHU, MIT.
Haaaaaaa!!!!! Hasaaa!!!!
My kid was accepted to two Ivies, Pomona , JHU and we weren’t offered a single cent.
Anonymous wrote:We will be happily paying 90K for our DC to attend Northwestern this fall. We are currently paying 70K/year for a SLAC ranked in the 30s with a merit scholarship for our other child.
Leaving out the Ivys, schools we have toured that we would have paid 90K for without reservation include:
Brown
Wesleyan
Duke
WashU
Vanderbilt
The truth is we would pay that amount for the school that is the best fit for our children. It would have been begrudgingly at some schools and comparisons with schools that came in below with merit would be made along with a discussion of value. That said, I expect those schools would have offered some merit to our students.
For our student that we are paying less for we are planning to put any difference towards grad school for her.
Our kids went to public school k-12. We are (I think) a donut hole family. We pay with a combination of savings and cashflow.
If we had to borrow any of the money it would be a different conversation. Net worth about 5M+, we are 8-10 years from retirement.
You are not a donut hole family, you have five million dollars.
Even if 1mm of that is not liquid (house), you have enormous resources.
Full freight for four years at (e.g.) NYU for two Larlings is less than 25% of your net worth.
This conversation is not about you, homey.
How nasty you are.
The question was what is worth 90K/year. Without knowing resources the question is meaningless. If we had less and our child got into a top 10 school we would qualify for financial aid and be paying a lot less than 90K/year.
I am a long term, admittedly senior, fed. UMC in a HCOL city. Isn’t that the definition of donut hole? With fewer resources we would get financial aid. I know we won’t get financial aid and that is because we had the ability to save and we chose to save.
DP.
No.
Please define donut hole where families with incomes above $200K/year are getting substantial financial aid.
The vast majority of our NW is retirement savings and home equity.
Ivies, Chicago, JHU, MIT.
Haaaaaaa!!!!! Hasaaa!!!!
My kid was accepted to two Ivies, Pomona , JHU and we weren’t offered a single cent.
Would include Stanford as well despite 40% kids getting accommodation through disability of some kind
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