Do families with $250K in income get financial aid? If not, how do they afford college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So let me get this straight , the kids at top privates are there primarily because mom and dad can pony up, not because they are particularly more intelligent than anyone else?

How do you think they got accepted in the 1st place? Kids who have hooks for athletics = lots of $ to get to that point
Kids who do not have athletic hooks = test prep and other support throughout the years.

This is dumb. Most top privates have about 15-20% of kids on pell grants. Aka, dirt poor.

Not anymore. I'm a teacher who earns $87k per year and my DS got a partial Pell Grant for next year. They recalculated the income requirements. That might be considered dirt poor to DCUMs but not to me.

[Anonymous]

When Mr kids go to college, I’ll have another 25 years to work. Pretty sure I can pay the loans off over those 25 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money was a serious issue for us. We found that if kid can accumulate enough credits through AP exams & community college classes taken while in high school, it makes graduating from college in 3 years possible. This saved a year’s worth of tuition & kid was a full-time finance worker at age 21.

3 years can typically put you at a big disadvantage applying for jobs, and you sometimes have to cram the academic experience with grueling overloaded classes. Can be great at some places, but I've seen the rush to graduate burn out friends and significantly handicap them later.

Employers don’t know when you start college. Just when degree was awarded. And even that falls off your LinkedIn pretty quickly. Nobody knows or cares about 3 years vs 4 vs 5

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money was a serious issue for us. We found that if kid can accumulate enough credits through AP exams & community college classes taken while in high school, it makes graduating from college in 3 years possible. This saved a year’s worth of tuition & kid was a full-time finance worker at age 21.

3 years can typically put you at a big disadvantage applying for jobs, and you sometimes have to cram the academic experience with grueling overloaded classes. Can be great at some places, but I've seen the rush to graduate burn out friends and significantly handicap them later.

Employers don’t know when you start college. Just when degree was awarded. And even that falls off your LinkedIn pretty quickly. Nobody knows or cares about 3 years vs 4 vs 5

You get less time for experience, less classes overall, and you're cramming the bare minimum requirements most of the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP. Sorry people have been rude. You ask a good question. With what feels like a lot of schools costing $70k+, it feels crippling. I know I have saved a little but our income didn't grow enough to save more until the kids were teens. And earlier I was trying to squirrel away money for my retirement.

With kids that are 14 and 16, it feels like this mountain in my future.

It's not a good question. It was quite possibly one of the stupidest questions ever posted on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money was a serious issue for us. We found that if kid can accumulate enough credits through AP exams & community college classes taken while in high school, it makes graduating from college in 3 years possible. This saved a year’s worth of tuition & kid was a full-time finance worker at age 21.

3 years can typically put you at a big disadvantage applying for jobs, and you sometimes have to cram the academic experience with grueling overloaded classes. Can be great at some places, but I've seen the rush to graduate burn out friends and significantly handicap them later.

Employers don’t know when you start college. Just when degree was awarded. And even that falls off your LinkedIn pretty quickly. Nobody knows or cares about 3 years vs 4 vs 5

You get less time for experience, less classes overall, and you're cramming the bare minimum requirements most of the time.

Nonsense. Because of AP classes I was able to double major in technical majors and still graduate in 5 semesters + 2 summer classes at the community college.

I got the same job as my classmates who took 4 or 5 years, but saved $100k.

If I had stayed another year, I would have spent thousands on fluff classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When Mr kids go to college, I’ll have another 25 years to work. Pretty sure I can pay the loans off over those 25 years.

Same, had kids during grad/professional schools, saved for college a little , now can afford the 80k per year and have 20+ years left to maximize retirement or if needed pay off a small heloc depending on where the last kid chooses to go next year. Yet DCUM would assess HHI as “average” and we do not qualify for aid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. Sorry people have been rude. You ask a good question. With what feels like a lot of schools costing $70k+, it feels crippling. I know I have saved a little but our income didn't grow enough to save more until the kids were teens. And earlier I was trying to squirrel away money for my retirement.

With kids that are 14 and 16, it feels like this mountain in my future.

It's not a good question. It was quite possibly one of the stupidest questions ever posted on DCUM.

+1

You scrimp and save into the 529. 18 years of savings bit by bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 1 kid that will go 4 yrs in state. The other is doing HS DE and will finish his last 2 yrs in state. I think where they go for grad school is more important than where they go for undergrad.

Why waste $$$s on grad school? It’s usually a terrible investment.

Never understand this thinking.

Well some (many) careers require it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 1 kid that will go 4 yrs in state. The other is doing HS DE and will finish his last 2 yrs in state. I think where they go for grad school is more important than where they go for undergrad.

Why waste $$$s on grad school? It’s usually a terrible investment.

Never understand this thinking.

Med school pays itself off easily. All our close friends did full loans and paid off within 15 yrs. Law school pays off for most. PhD’s worth getting are fully funded (ie tuition plus stipend to live on, yes even in humanities): they are Free!
Only terminal masters can be a $ suck, but some of them, depending on field, pay off well.

[Anonymous]

Our kids went to public schools, and it was still very difficult even with that income.
We did not qualify for anything. Heck, they would not even allow the kids to take a loan; the only thing they did was tell us, parents, to take the loan!
It was not an option for them to go to out of state or a private college. We are not so stupid to go into a huge debt of that kind nor that evil to allow our kids to get student loans that would ruin their lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make less, we save starting at birth, make savings a priority, no vacations, etc. and state school.

Yep. Started saving when we were TRYING to have our first. Opened a 529 with monthly contributions of $25. Neither of us are "rich" but we are doing fine. Lived in the same house for 24 years. Only the past couple of years do we have combined salaries in excess of $250k. Limited our two children to $50K/yr each which pretty much limits them to public.

There are a lot of private schools where merit can bring the price down to $50k or lower. Just have to look beyond T30ish

True but they are usually well below T50 for top easy attainable merit. Why pursue it if the publics in question are UVA and Wiilliam&Mary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. Sorry people have been rude. You ask a good question. With what feels like a lot of schools costing $70k+, it feels crippling. I know I have saved a little but our income didn't grow enough to save more until the kids were teens. And earlier I was trying to squirrel away money for my retirement.

With kids that are 14 and 16, it feels like this mountain in my future.

It's not a good question. It was quite possibly one of the stupidest questions ever posted on DCUM.

It actually was a fair question. But you are quite possibly one of the most trash people on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

We started saving before they were born. It’s not like it’s a surprise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 1 kid that will go 4 yrs in state. The other is doing HS DE and will finish his last 2 yrs in state. I think where they go for grad school is more important than where they go for undergrad.

Why waste $$$s on grad school? It’s usually a terrible investment.

Never understand this thinking.

Med school pays itself off easily. All our close friends did full loans and paid off within 15 yrs. Law school pays off for most. PhD’s worth getting are fully funded (ie tuition plus stipend to live on, yes even in humanities): they are Free!
Only terminal masters can be a $ suck, but some of them, depending on field, pay off well.

"Pay off easily" and "15 years" are not anywhere close to synonymous in my head. That's a debilitating wait to have freedom from just school debt.