S/o: The shrinking middle class at top schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly what I have been saying.

Hard working tax paying middle class should be rewarded not punished for the society and country to be healthy.

Implying that low-income families aren’t hardworking or taxpaying.

I didn't say that, but middle class is surely getting punished.

Real middle class are getting financial aid. You mean wealthy DCUM middle class who live in million dollar homes and choose not to save and yet demand their kids go to the most expensive schools. The rest of us, who are real middle class live within our means, or under our means to save for state school.

I think my family is real middle class. 4 kids, $110k combined income. DD got $0 in financial aid.

That is middle class but having 4 kids is a choice. Most of us stop at 2 so we can afford our kids needs.

This is how low income people handicap their kids. With each additional kid, the slices of the pie get smaller. I feel bad for my students when their parents keep having kids they can’t afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly what I have been saying.

Hard working tax paying middle class should be rewarded not punished for the society and country to be healthy.

Implying that low-income families aren’t hardworking or taxpaying.

I didn't say that, but middle class is surely getting punished.

Real middle class are getting financial aid. You mean wealthy DCUM middle class who live in million dollar homes and choose not to save and yet demand their kids go to the most expensive schools. The rest of us, who are real middle class live within our means, or under our means to save for state school.

I think my family is real middle class. 4 kids, $110k combined income. DD got $0 in financial aid.

This is unreal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly what I have been saying.

Hard working tax paying middle class should be rewarded not punished for the society and country to be healthy.

Implying that low-income families aren’t hardworking or taxpaying.

I didn't say that, but middle class is surely getting punished.

Real middle class are getting financial aid. You mean wealthy DCUM middle class who live in million dollar homes and choose not to save and yet demand their kids go to the most expensive schools. The rest of us, who are real middle class live within our means, or under our means to save for state school.

I think my family is real middle class. 4 kids, $110k combined income. DD got $0 in financial aid.

This is unreal.

Agreed---at meet need schools, that is highly unlikely unless you have large savings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly what I have been saying.

Hard working tax paying middle class should be rewarded not punished for the society and country to be healthy.

Implying that low-income families aren’t hardworking or taxpaying.

I didn't say that, but middle class is surely getting punished.

Real middle class are getting financial aid. You mean wealthy DCUM middle class who live in million dollar homes and choose not to save and yet demand their kids go to the most expensive schools. The rest of us, who are real middle class live within our means, or under our means to save for state school.

I think my family is real middle class. 4 kids, $110k combined income. DD got $0 in financial aid.

This is unreal.

It probably depends on grades and other factors. They probably got offered loans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly what I have been saying.

Hard working tax paying middle class should be rewarded not punished for the society and country to be healthy.

Implying that low-income families aren’t hardworking or taxpaying.

I didn't say that, but middle class is surely getting punished.

Real middle class are getting financial aid. You mean wealthy DCUM middle class who live in million dollar homes and choose not to save and yet demand their kids go to the most expensive schools. The rest of us, who are real middle class live within our means, or under our means to save for state school.

This. Although, full disclosure, I think my house is now worth over a million in this crazy market! Not sure I can afford the taxes much longer!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly what I have been saying.

Hard working tax paying middle class should be rewarded not punished for the society and country to be healthy.

Implying that low-income families aren’t hardworking or taxpaying.

I didn't say that, but middle class is surely getting punished.

Real middle class are getting financial aid. You mean wealthy DCUM middle class who live in million dollar homes and choose not to save and yet demand their kids go to the most expensive schools. The rest of us, who are real middle class live within our means, or under our means to save for state school.

This. Although, full disclosure, I think my house is now worth over a million in this crazy market! Not sure I can afford the taxes much longer!!

Also meant this for the super elite schools. For many of the merit schools, the pressure is on my kid because we likely can't afford them w/o a LOT of merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t this the goal? Why else would you charge everyone else under 10% of HHI, but charge this in-between group 40%? This is not rocket science. It’s like the first week of Econ 101.

+1

I have no problem at all with, say, the bottom quartile families getting their needs met. The problem is the equating of the upper three quartiles.

[Anonymous]

This study is dividing incomes into quartiles. The upper quartile starts at 98K annual income (2018-2019 school year, not certain if that's the last year the study covers). So this has nothing to do with the donut hole gripes that circulate here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly what I have been saying.

Hard working tax paying middle class should be rewarded not punished for the society and country to be healthy.

Implying that low-income families aren’t hardworking or taxpaying.

I didn't say that, but middle class is surely getting punished.

Real middle class are getting financial aid. You mean wealthy DCUM middle class who live in million dollar homes and choose not to save and yet demand their kids go to the most expensive schools. The rest of us, who are real middle class live within our means, or under our means to save for state school.

I think my family is real middle class. 4 kids, $110k combined income. DD got $0 in financial aid.

That is middle class but having 4 kids is a choice. Most of us stop at 2 so we can afford our kids needs.

This is how low-income people handicap their kids. With each additional kid, the slices of the pie get smaller. I feel bad for my students when their parents keep having kids they can’t afford.

Low income isn't the issue as they will get financial aid. There has to be more to this like this is the first child, etc.

We stopped at one child. We cannot afford a $90K school and we have saved since birth. We live in a lower cost very small crummy house, rarely vacation (as in maybe every 5-6 years, not even a long weekend) and our big splurges are activities for our child. They know we can pay for a state college and graduate school and that's it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This study is dividing incomes into quartiles. The upper quartile starts at 98K annual income (2018-2019 school year, not certain if that's the last year the study covers). So this has nothing to do with the donut hole gripes that circulate here.

Except at the very top schools (and the study looked at 200 schools), the financial gap known as the doughnut hole goes down well into financial aid territory. Generally speaking, under FAFSA, a family making $100k is expected to pay $47k toward the cost of attendance. That can represent a big discount off the sticker price and still be too expensive for a family to bear, especially for high-performing students who might get a merit-based full ride from a less selective college. Practically the entire honors dorm at GMU, for example, is in this situation. They could be admitted to the more selective schools included in this study, but even with FA, they can’t rationalize the more expensive choice. And this affects admissions, too, because if you feel you can’t turn down a potential full ride at a school like GMU, you can’t afford to ED anywhere. That’s why the true middle class is disappearing from the 200 selective schools looked at in this study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study is dividing incomes into quartiles. The upper quartile starts at 98K annual income (2018-2019 school year, not certain if that's the last year the study covers). So this has nothing to do with the donut hole gripes that circulate here.

Except at the very top schools (and the study looked at 200 schools), the financial gap known as the doughnut hole goes down well into financial aid territory. Generally speaking, under FAFSA, a family making $100k is expected to pay $47k toward the cost of attendance. That can represent a big discount off the sticker price and still be too expensive for a family to bear, especially for high-performing students who might get a merit-based full ride from a less selective college. Practically the entire honors dorm at GMU, for example, is in this situation. They could be admitted to the more selective schools included in this study, but even with FA, they can’t rationalize the more expensive choice. And this affects admissions, too, because if you feel you can’t turn down a potential full ride at a school like GMU, you can’t afford to ED anywhere. That’s why the true middle class is disappearing from the 200 selective schools looked at in this study.

If we’re talking families near $100K income I completely agree. They don’t get much aid and have a hard time scraping together any more. However, the most vocal complaints around here often turn out to have incomes 2-3 times that. Yes, tuition at a private is still painfully high, but those families are not disappearing, they’re over represented, and they’re not the focus of this study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The wealthy keep their stranglehold on access to elite institutions- throw some bones to the underclass to deflect criticism. DEI is also designed to racialize what is an income inequality issue. Privilege is tied to whiteness rather than wealth

Harvard is now minority white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study is dividing incomes into quartiles. The upper quartile starts at 98K annual income (2018-2019 school year, not certain if that's the last year the study covers). So this has nothing to do with the donut hole gripes that circulate here.

Except at the very top schools (and the study looked at 200 schools), the financial gap known as the doughnut hole goes down well into financial aid territory. Generally speaking, under FAFSA, a family making $100k is expected to pay $47k toward the cost of attendance. That can represent a big discount off the sticker price and still be too expensive for a family to bear, especially for high-performing students who might get a merit-based full ride from a less selective college. Practically the entire honors dorm at GMU, for example, is in this situation. They could be admitted to the more selective schools included in this study, but even with FA, they can’t rationalize the more expensive choice. And this affects admissions, too, because if you feel you can’t turn down a potential full ride at a school like GMU, you can’t afford to ED anywhere. That’s why the true middle class is disappearing from the 200 selective schools looked at in this study.

DP. I don't think that figure is quite accurate. Our income is around 130k and efc around 40k.

Our kid's top college (T20) expanded aid for families in the mid income range (true middle class) over the past 3 years. % of students in mid income went up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study is dividing incomes into quartiles. The upper quartile starts at 98K annual income (2018-2019 school year, not certain if that's the last year the study covers). So this has nothing to do with the donut hole gripes that circulate here.

Except at the very top schools (and the study looked at 200 schools), the financial gap known as the doughnut hole goes down well into financial aid territory. Generally speaking, under FAFSA, a family making $100k is expected to pay $47k toward the cost of attendance. That can represent a big discount off the sticker price and still be too expensive for a family to bear, especially for high-performing students who might get a merit-based full ride from a less selective college. Practically the entire honors dorm at GMU, for example, is in this situation. They could be admitted to the more selective schools included in this study, but even with FA, they can’t rationalize the more expensive choice. And this affects admissions, too, because if you feel you can’t turn down a potential full ride at a school like GMU, you can’t afford to ED anywhere. That’s why the true middle class is disappearing from the 200 selective schools looked at in this study.

If we’re talking families near $100K income I completely agree. They don’t get much aid and have a hard time scraping together any more. However, the most vocal complaints around here often turn out to have incomes 2-3 times that. Yes, tuition at a private is still painfully high, but those families are not disappearing, they’re over represented, and they’re not the focus of this study.

Our family has the 100k income range in the DMV and our EFC was 32k yr. Sounds like it wouldn't be do-able, but honestly we're almost done paying for the first and it was okay. Kid has 17k in loans total but is graduating with a 68k job lined up in a social science field so it seems an affordable loan burden. Still have savings in 529 for the 2nd and should be fine. I've seen a couple other posters close to our range on DCUM and they seem to express the same thing. It's interesting when I see those with 175-300 complaining--I think it's because their income pushed them into a different social sphere with a different set of expectations and references.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study is dividing incomes into quartiles. The upper quartile starts at 98K annual income (2018-2019 school year, not certain if that's the last year the study covers). So this has nothing to do with the donut hole gripes that circulate here.

Except at the very top schools (and the study looked at 200 schools), the financial gap known as the doughnut hole goes down well into financial aid territory. Generally speaking, under FAFSA, a family making $100k is expected to pay $47k toward the cost of attendance. That can represent a big discount off the sticker price and still be too expensive for a family to bear, especially for high-performing students who might get a merit-based full ride from a less selective college. Practically the entire honors dorm at GMU, for example, is in this situation. They could be admitted to the more selective schools included in this study, but even with FA, they can’t rationalize the more expensive choice. And this affects admissions, too, because if you feel you can’t turn down a potential full ride at a school like GMU, you can’t afford to ED anywhere. That’s why the true middle class is disappearing from the 200 selective schools looked at in this study.

If we’re talking families near $100K income I completely agree. They don’t get much aid and have a hard time scraping together any more. However, the most vocal complaints around here often turn out to have incomes 2-3 times that. Yes, tuition at a private is still painfully high, but those families are not disappearing, they’re over represented, and they’re not the focus of this study.

Our family has the 100k income range in the DMV and our EFC was 32k yr. Sounds like it wouldn't be do-able, but honestly we're almost done paying for the first and it was okay. Kid has 17k in loans total but is graduating with a 68k job lined up in a social science field so it seems an affordable loan burden. Still have savings in 529 for the 2nd and should be fine. I've seen a couple other posters close to our range on DCUM and they seem to express the same thing. It's interesting when I see those with 175-300 complaining--I think it's because their income pushed them into a different social sphere with a different set of expectations and references.

We're in the 175 range. Our EFC will be about 40k which is doable. The problem will the the 2 years when our kids overlap. Ironically, we're priced out of UVA/VT/W&M, but the incredibly expensive privates that meet all need and use CSS will be affordable