The New America: Elite Privates forever out of reach for UMC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But my point is that they are not inaccessible. They are just not “comfortably “accessible. Households making $200,000 could afford it if they were willing to live like as if they were making $125,000. The OP’s premise seems to be that middle-class people should be able to afford it without any impact on their lifestyle.

The $75K spread doesn't take the tax on the $200,000 income into account. Those people would have to live more like they were making less than $100K, taking taxes into account.

Moreover, that income doesn't go as far in e.g. DC as it does in Tulsa - and presumably the people earning it have not been earning it for 18 years. Whatever they were earning in the first 5-8 years was eaten up by daycare.

The costs of housing and healthcare have also risen dramatically in the last 40 years, making it all the harder for people to save.

Private and Parent Plus loans were not a thing before tuition soared out of control.

I agree with you that it is very difficult for families in that “UMC donut hole”, particularly those in high COL areas, to pay for the elite schools. I’m still not seeing how it’s a problem.

It's a problem because it makes certain kinds of education inaccessible in ways that it was not in previous generations. And it means that the schools themselves have student bodies made up of students from very wealthy families and from families who qualify for need-based aid, which leaves out a sizable portion of the U.S. demographics.

It also means that super high achievers whose families cannot pay won't have the opportunity to participate in the amazing things happening at these schools.

I think the fact that you think that families in the $175k-$225k range represent a “sizable portion” of US demographics just represents what a complete and utter bubble you live in.

[Anonymous]

I have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Or maybe you’re not paying attention. Bernie’s free college is for PUBLIC schools. Last I checked the schools being mentioned in this thread are not public so...

I stand corrected. If public schools were free I wonder what the impact on private tuition would be.

[Anonymous]

I think the fact that you think that families in the $175k-$225k range represent a “sizable portion” of US demographics just represents what a complete and utter bubble you live in.

Going back to the OP, perhaps that's one reason elite private schools are ignoring this issue; it's simply too small a demographic to affect their financial model of high tuition, high aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I think the fact that you think that families in the $175k-$225k range represent a “sizable portion” of US demographics just represents what a complete and utter bubble you live in.

Going back to the OP, perhaps that's one reason elite private schools are ignoring this issue; it's simply too small a demographic to affect their financial model of high tuition, high aid.

It's also hard to understand why it should matter to the school from a diversity perspective. They have true middle class kids, upper middle class kids, and straight upper class kids all enrolling. All "high achievers" from all over the country. Even if you believe in the "donut hole" (debatable) it's not clear that it's an actual problem for schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But my point is that they are not inaccessible. They are just not “comfortably “accessible. Households making $200,000 could afford it if they were willing to live like as if they were making $125,000. The OP’s premise seems to be that middle-class people should be able to afford it without any impact on their lifestyle.

The $75K spread doesn't take the tax on the $200,000 income into account. Those people would have to live more like they were making less than $100K, taking taxes into account.

Moreover, that income doesn't go as far in e.g. DC as it does in Tulsa - and presumably the people earning it have not been earning it for 18 years. Whatever they were earning in the first 5-8 years was eaten up by daycare.

The costs of housing and healthcare have also risen dramatically in the last 40 years, making it all the harder for people to save.

Private and Parent Plus loans were not a thing before tuition soared out of control.

I agree with you that it is very difficult for families in that “UMC donut hole”, particularly those in high COL areas, to pay for the elite schools. I’m still not seeing how it’s a problem.

It's a problem because it makes certain kinds of education inaccessible in ways that it was not in previous generations. And it means that the schools themselves have student bodies made up of students from very wealthy families and from families who qualify for need-based aid, which leaves out a sizable portion of the U.S. demographics.

It also means that super high achievers whose families cannot pay won't have the opportunity to participate in the amazing things happening at these schools.

This. Is. Not. New.

Middle class kids have never been able to afford HYP. I had a community college prof who graduated HS in the 1990s and applied to Harvard on a lark. He got in but didn’t go. He was the only person I knew in my community who had even applied. No one from my high school conference of 8-9 high schools has sent any kid to an Ivy in the past 20 years. Maybe ever, but I can definitively say not in the past 20. Lots of impressive high achiever kids enrolling at Iowa State and U of Iowa.

The only difference between my experience graduating in the mid aughts and kids today is, if these kids did apply (they don’t) and they got in (probably wouldn’t, our high schools have no APs and no prestigious interesting extracurriculars) they would qualify for financial aid. But that’s actually *better* access than previous generations.

This is absolutely a story about entitlement. Rich, but not very rich, people who think they should be allowed to send their kids to top schools but fall short.

It is new. You graduated in the mid aughts, not in 1983 (as I did). So it's not new to you, but it is new to those of us who went to college many decades ago.

I'm the PP whose expensive school cost $8,000 in 1979, and $75,000 today. My parents put SIX kids through private colleges in that era, without any student debt. That would be impossible today for everyone but the top 1%. In the 70s and 80s, middle class kids who qualified to attend HYP, could and did attend. When I was in high school, the mantra went, "if you can get in, there are ways to pay for it."

That is no longer true.

It. is. new.

You’re really delusional. $8k in 1979 is over $28k in today’s dollars. You come from serious privilege and apparently don’t realize it.

Yes, that's right. Each of my parents' kids contributed at least a few, and often several thousand to tuition, room and board costs each year. In that era, summer and work-study earnings made a dent in the overall costs. I recall making about $3K over the course of a summer (May - August) by working two jobs, and handing over all but a few hundred to my parents towards expenses. A college student could contribute a good chunk of minimum-wage earnings towards her education in that era.

My brother took a year off from college to think about what he wanted to do, and worked full-time as a carpenter that year (this was in the mid-70s). He lived with my parents and banked his earnings - and when he returned (to HYP) the following year, he paid for most of the expenses from that money.

None of that is possible now because of how costs have skyrocketed.

There are other factors that made it feasible for my middle-class parents, including lower housing costs and lower healthcare costs. Those costs take a much bigger bite out of a family's HHI now than they did in the 70s.

The making $3k over the summer toward $8k tuition is what gets me because wage stagnation is the other piece here. Yes, tuition has gone up like crazy - my tuition at a SLAC in the mid-2000s was $40k and my college charges close to $70k 15 years later, which is wild. But i also worked during the summers and was only able to earn a little over $3k. In my small town there just weren't jobs available for unskilled workers like a college freshman that paid more. My mom took a semester off from college in the 70s to earn enough to pay for an entire year when her mom remarried and she lost financial aid; no way could a 20 year old student earn enough in 7 months to do that now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But my point is that they are not inaccessible. They are just not “comfortably “accessible. Households making $200,000 could afford it if they were willing to live like as if they were making $125,000. The OP’s premise seems to be that middle-class people should be able to afford it without any impact on their lifestyle.

The $75K spread doesn't take the tax on the $200,000 income into account. Those people would have to live more like they were making less than $100K, taking taxes into account.

Moreover, that income doesn't go as far in e.g. DC as it does in Tulsa - and presumably the people earning it have not been earning it for 18 years. Whatever they were earning in the first 5-8 years was eaten up by daycare.

The costs of housing and healthcare have also risen dramatically in the last 40 years, making it all the harder for people to save.

Private and Parent Plus loans were not a thing before tuition soared out of control.

I agree with you that it is very difficult for families in that “UMC donut hole”, particularly those in high COL areas, to pay for the elite schools. I’m still not seeing how it’s a problem.

It's a problem because it makes certain kinds of education inaccessible in ways that it was not in previous generations. And it means that the schools themselves have student bodies made up of students from very wealthy families and from families who qualify for need-based aid, which leaves out a sizable portion of the U.S. demographics.

It also means that super high achievers whose families cannot pay won't have the opportunity to participate in the amazing things happening at these schools.

This. Is. Not. New.

Middle class kids have never been able to afford HYP. I had a community college prof who graduated HS in the 1990s and applied to Harvard on a lark. He got in but didn’t go. He was the only person I knew in my community who had even applied. No one from my high school conference of 8-9 high schools has sent any kid to an Ivy in the past 20 years. Maybe ever, but I can definitively say not in the past 20. Lots of impressive high achiever kids enrolling at Iowa State and U of Iowa.

The only difference between my experience graduating in the mid aughts and kids today is, if these kids did apply (they don’t) and they got in (probably wouldn’t, our high schools have no APs and no prestigious interesting extracurriculars) they would qualify for financial aid. But that’s actually *better* access than previous generations.

This is absolutely a story about entitlement. Rich, but not very rich, people who think they should be allowed to send their kids to top schools but fall short.

It is new. You graduated in the mid aughts, not in 1983 (as I did). So it's not new to you, but it is new to those of us who went to college many decades ago.

I'm the PP whose expensive school cost $8,000 in 1979, and $75,000 today. My parents put SIX kids through private colleges in that era, without any student debt. That would be impossible today for everyone but the top 1%. In the 70s and 80s, middle class kids who qualified to attend HYP, could and did attend. When I was in high school, the mantra went, "if you can get in, there are ways to pay for it."

That is no longer true.

It. is. new.

You’re really delusional. $8k in 1979 is over $28k in today’s dollars. You come from serious privilege and apparently don’t realize it.

Yes, that's right. Each of my parents' kids contributed at least a few, and often several thousand to tuition, room and board costs each year. In that era, summer and work-study earnings made a dent in the overall costs. I recall making about $3K over the course of a summer (May - August) by working two jobs, and handing over all but a few hundred to my parents towards expenses. A college student could contribute a good chunk of minimum-wage earnings towards her education in that era.

My brother took a year off from college to think about what he wanted to do, and worked full-time as a carpenter that year (this was in the mid-70s). He lived with my parents and banked his earnings - and when he returned (to HYP) the following year, he paid for most of the expenses from that money.

None of that is possible now because of how costs have skyrocketed.

There are other factors that made it feasible for my middle-class parents, including lower housing costs and lower healthcare costs. Those costs take a much bigger bite out of a family's HHI now than they did in the 70s.

The making $3k over the summer toward $8k tuition is what gets me because wage stagnation is the other piece here. Yes, tuition has gone up like crazy - my tuition at a SLAC in the mid-2000s was $40k and my college charges close to $70k 15 years later, which is wild. But i also worked during the summers and was only able to earn a little over $3k. In my small town there just weren't jobs available for unskilled workers like a college freshman that paid more. My mom took a semester off from college in the 70s to earn enough to pay for an entire year when her mom remarried and she lost financial aid; no way could a 20 year old student earn enough in 7 months to do that now.

It sounds like you're conflating COA with tuition? I don't think any SLAC charges $70k, but plenty were 40k in tuition in the mid 2000s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t consider University of Wisconsin Madison to be ELITE. I think OP is talking about HYPS etc...

UMC (We are 260k salary) can pay for 4 years undergraduate at private 4 year if they save. The question is whether it is both.

Schools like UW are relatively affordable for people who live in state and do a work-study program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Not PP, but a substantial number of my HS friends, in the mixed-SES town I grew up, in attended top-20 schools: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Williams, Amherst, Dartmouth - those are the names I recall off the top of my head.

In our generation (I'm 58yo), the cost of attendance could be covered from savings, current income, the student's summer earnings, work study, and some modest loans. E.g. the expensive private SLAC I attended cost about $8,000 when I started in 1979, and I contributed about 25% of that from my summer and school-year work. Proportionally, a student today would have to contribute almost $25,000 to make the same dent in the same school's costs.

Adjusted for inflation, $8,000.00 in 1979 is equal to $29,687.80 in 2019. But that school now costs almost $75,000/year.

+1

I'm 59 and this describes the shift well.

It's really about who gets access to the elite institutions and therefore into the ruling class.

Who says people who go to HYP are "ruling class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know it depends on how you define UMC. Let's say donut hole families which are so common in high COL areas. Above 100k income approx, but not enough to shell out 300K cash for a bachelor's degree. Not eligible for need based aid at IVY's and other elite privates. Guess these schools don't care that there is a segment of the population which can no longer afford their services. It's too small a demographic perhaps? The 80th to 90th income percentiles, again approx. Not sure what would be the threshold HHI in a high COL area to be able to spend 75K comfortably out of pocket or savings while affording a single family home in a decent neighborhood with good schools (forget private). Especially for multiple children. In other words a basic middle class life as it used to be defined.

I'm older and I would say that this started being an issue around 2000. The younger UMC demographic seems to be a key segment of Bernie's support. Is it any wonder? Not that any bachelor's degree is worth 300K.

One aspect of the new American inequality: the proletarianization of the everyone under the plutocracy.

Not borne out by facts

{Yale} school says that families with household incomes of less than $65,000 are not expected to contribute any funds to pay for their students education and families that make between $65,000 and $200,000 contribute between just 1% and 20% of their annual income.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/it-costs-75925-to-go-to-yaleheres-how-much-students-actually-pay.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know it depends on how you define UMC. Let's say donut hole families which are so common in high COL areas. Above 100k income approx, but not enough to shell out 300K cash for a bachelor's degree. Not eligible for need based aid at IVY's and other elite privates. Guess these schools don't care that there is a segment of the population which can no longer afford their services. It's too small a demographic perhaps? The 80th to 90th income percentiles, again approx. Not sure what would be the threshold HHI in a high COL area to be able to spend 75K comfortably out of pocket or savings while affording a single family home in a decent neighborhood with good schools (forget private). Especially for multiple children. In other words a basic middle class life as it used to be defined.

I'm older and I would say that this started being an issue around 2000. The younger UMC demographic seems to be a key segment of Bernie's support. Is it any wonder? Not that any bachelor's degree is worth 300K.

One aspect of the new American inequality: the proletarianization of the everyone under the plutocracy.

If these institutions don’t want your kid, why do you give them power over you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But my point is that they are not inaccessible. They are just not “comfortably “accessible. Households making $200,000 could afford it if they were willing to live like as if they were making $125,000. The OP’s premise seems to be that middle-class people should be able to afford it without any impact on their lifestyle.

The $75K spread doesn't take the tax on the $200,000 income into account. Those people would have to live more like they were making less than $100K, taking taxes into account.

Moreover, that income doesn't go as far in e.g. DC as it does in Tulsa - and presumably the people earning it have not been earning it for 18 years. Whatever they were earning in the first 5-8 years was eaten up by daycare.

The costs of housing and healthcare have also risen dramatically in the last 40 years, making it all the harder for people to save.

Private and Parent Plus loans were not a thing before tuition soared out of control.

I agree with you that it is very difficult for families in that “UMC donut hole”, particularly those in high COL areas, to pay for the elite schools. I’m still not seeing how it’s a problem.

It's a problem because it makes certain kinds of education inaccessible in ways that it was not in previous generations. And it means that the schools themselves have student bodies made up of students from very wealthy families and from families who qualify for need-based aid, which leaves out a sizable portion of the U.S. demographics.

It also means that super high achievers whose families cannot pay won't have the opportunity to participate in the amazing things happening at these schools.

This. Is. Not. New.

Middle class kids have never been able to afford HYP. I had a community college prof who graduated HS in the 1990s and applied to Harvard on a lark. He got in but didn’t go. He was the only person I knew in my community who had even applied. No one from my high school conference of 8-9 high schools has sent any kid to an Ivy in the past 20 years. Maybe ever, but I can definitively say not in the past 20. Lots of impressive high achiever kids enrolling at Iowa State and U of Iowa.

The only difference between my experience graduating in the mid aughts and kids today is, if these kids did apply (they don’t) and they got in (probably wouldn’t, our high schools have no APs and no prestigious interesting extracurriculars) they would qualify for financial aid. But that’s actually *better* access than previous generations.

This is absolutely a story about entitlement. Rich, but not very rich, people who think they should be allowed to send their kids to top schools but fall short.

It is new. You graduated in the mid aughts, not in 1983 (as I did). So it's not new to you, but it is new to those of us who went to college many decades ago.

I'm the PP whose expensive school cost $8,000 in 1979, and $75,000 today. My parents put SIX kids through private colleges in that era, without any student debt. That would be impossible today for everyone but the top 1%. In the 70s and 80s, middle class kids who qualified to attend HYP, could and did attend. When I was in high school, the mantra went, "if you can get in, there are ways to pay for it."

That is no longer true.

It. is. new.

You’re really delusional. $8k in 1979 is over $28k in today’s dollars. You come from serious privilege and apparently don’t realize it.

Yes, that's right. Each of my parents' kids contributed at least a few, and often several thousand to tuition, room and board costs each year. In that era, summer and work-study earnings made a dent in the overall costs. I recall making about $3K over the course of a summer (May - August) by working two jobs, and handing over all but a few hundred to my parents towards expenses. A college student could contribute a good chunk of minimum-wage earnings towards her education in that era.

My brother took a year off from college to think about what he wanted to do, and worked full-time as a carpenter that year (this was in the mid-70s). He lived with my parents and banked his earnings - and when he returned (to HYP) the following year, he paid for most of the expenses from that money.

None of that is possible now because of how costs have skyrocketed.

There are other factors that made it feasible for my middle-class parents, including lower housing costs and lower healthcare costs. Those costs take a much bigger bite out of a family's HHI now than they did in the 70s.

The making $3k over the summer toward $8k tuition is what gets me because wage stagnation is the other piece here. Yes, tuition has gone up like crazy - my tuition at a SLAC in the mid-2000s was $40k and my college charges close to $70k 15 years later, which is wild. But i also worked during the summers and was only able to earn a little over $3k. In my small town there just weren't jobs available for unskilled workers like a college freshman that paid more. My mom took a semester off from college in the 70s to earn enough to pay for an entire year when her mom remarried and she lost financial aid; no way could a 20 year old student earn enough in 7 months to do that now.

It sounds like you're conflating COA with tuition? I don't think any SLAC charges $70k, but plenty were 40k in tuition in the mid 2000s.

Yes, COA. I went to Williams in the mid 2000s and COA was in the low 40s at full price. That said, room and board wasn't really optional - it was a tiny town and you weren't allowed to live off campus until senior year and i think only 10% of the senior class was allowed (one of my friends was told she wasn't and she was like "what are you going to do, expel me?" So they didn't enforce it, but VERY few people pushed it). So these aren't always easily separable costs and financial aid went toward room and board and books as well.

According to Google, the current COA is $73,200.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Look at the liberal elites. They have gotten their prize and their high position on the economic ladder. They have now shut the door and pulled up the ladder to the opportunities that got them to where they are today for the upper middle class. By allowing UMC access to education at prestigious private schools they could potentially be knocked a few runs lower on the ladder. The liberal elite are all for admitting poor minority students because they won't pose a threat to them once they graduate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Not PP, but a substantial number of my HS friends, in the mixed-SES town I grew up, in attended top-20 schools: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Williams, Amherst, Dartmouth - those are the names I recall off the top of my head.

In our generation (I'm 58yo), the cost of attendance could be covered from savings, current income, the student's summer earnings, work study, and some modest loans. E.g. the expensive private SLAC I attended cost about $8,000 when I started in 1979, and I contributed about 25% of that from my summer and school-year work. Proportionally, a student today would have to contribute almost $25,000 to make the same dent in the same school's costs.

Adjusted for inflation, $8,000.00 in 1979 is equal to $29,687.80 in 2019. But that school now costs almost $75,000/year.

+1

I'm 59 and this describes the shift well.

It's really about who gets access to the elite institutions and therefore into the ruling class.

I don’t think an elite private cost $8000 in 1979. I went to school that year and it was more. Not able to subsidize that with a summer job unless it was engineering/ computers.
Also we are paying $43k for a State school. Education has always been geared towards the wealthy. Even if it’s not proportional right now. There are so many more wealthy people full pay now at elite schools.

[Anonymous]

^^ $43k year for State school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not PP, but a substantial number of my HS friends, in the mixed-SES town I grew up, in attended top-20 schools: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Williams, Amherst, Dartmouth - those are the names I recall off the top of my head.

In our generation (I'm 58yo), the cost of attendance could be covered from savings, current income, the student's summer earnings, work study, and some modest loans. E.g. the expensive private SLAC I attended cost about $8,000 when I started in 1979, and I contributed about 25% of that from my summer and school-year work. Proportionally, a student today would have to contribute almost $25,000 to make the same dent in the same school's costs.

Adjusted for inflation, $8,000.00 in 1979 is equal to $29,687.80 in 2019. But that school now costs almost $75,000/year.

+1

I'm 59 and this describes the shift well.

It's really about who gets access to the elite institutions and therefore into the ruling class.

I don’t think an elite private cost $8000 in 1979. I went to school that year and it was more. Not able to subsidize that with a summer job unless it was engineering/ computers.
Also we are paying $43k for a State school. Education has always been geared towards the wealthy. Even if it’s not proportional right now. There are so many more wealthy people full pay now at elite schools.

Looks like PP only meant tuition. Today only tuition is $55k.

https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4074-the-cost-of-yale-a-history