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Anonymous wrote:A lot of people who claim to be "donut hole" families have lived lives of increasing lifestyle creep as their incomes have climbed up 200k, and then want to complain that they don't get enough need-based aid. Well, did you really need a new car every 5 years? Expensive vacations? To redo the kitchen?
If you want to argue that a family making over 200k is middle class, then live like middle class people -- budget, accept you won't be able to afford everything you want to do, and sock money away for retirement and college.
We make well under 200k and this is what we do, and we have friends making over who go out to eat three nights a week, drive luxury cars, and take multiple vacations overseas every year, have weekly cleaners, etc. Those people are not entitled to need-based aid. It's not my fault, or the college's fault, that they chose to just live nicer, more luxurious, easier lives instead of saving their additional income for their child's education. We've scrimped and saved and still won't have enough. AND work in helping professions. I don't cry myself to sleep over the doctors and consultants and well-paid feds who will be disappointed in their FA award while crying into their Tesla upholstery and trying to console themselves on the flight to Aruba. Boo freaking hoo.
That's fine but look what you've done. You've sacrificed your whole life only to be ripped off by a system where more than half the kids are practically going for free, while maybe a quarter of the parents are rich people for whom $320k is a fraction of an annual bonus. You are kind of the sucker here.
And I’m sure Harvard’s $50+ BILLION endowment appreciates all the sacrifice. We shouldn’t have a system that requires such deprivation when colleges are sitting on tax protected billions. We are the suckers. Chileans took to the streets when universities were too expensive. We shame each other for taking a vacation.
+1 And most of our vacations aren't even that nice. I've never taken our kids to a beach resort or Disneyworld. Most of our vacations are to see family. We drive our cars for like 15 years. We chose to live in a nice neighborhood for the safety and schools, but that's about it. We live in a hcol area because of our jobs, but that's about it.
We don't wear expensive clothes; we shop at Old Navy and Kohls. I have no jewelry except my engagement ring.
We save a lot more for retirement because we don't have family money, and we don't want to burden our children with our retirement. And actually, we help out our families financially.
Colleges that take federal money for research should have their costs regulated.
It's ridiculous for them to expect families making $280K to pay the same as a family making $800K.
I'm the same as you, but I'm not so sure it is ridiculous for them to expect that families making $280k should pay the same as a family making $800k. I think of these $80k per year colleges as a luxury car. There are people that pay $80k for a car. I suppose I could do that-- you could do that-- but I don't because the used Toyota Rav4 is fine. Likewise, I could pay $80k per year for my kids to go to a college, but why would I when they can get just as good an education at a public school.
Why do these schools decide to not help upper-middle class attend? Maybe those endowments are restricted and can only be used to help families that are truly middle class? OR maybe the odd mix of obscenely wealthy and middle class/ poor kids and nothing in between is working for them. Gives the student body une certaine frissione that having a bunch of upper-middle class people would cause to go flat.
The fact is kids in upper-middle class families will largely do very well at whatever school they attend. They don't need the access that less affluent kids require. For a school to brag about rags-to-riches stories the kids actually needs to be in rags, and $280k per year families ain't going to bring it.
Anyway, if your argument is that private elite schools should give a better deal to families making $280k than for $800k, where does that kind of thinking end? Tesla has luxury cars and the company has taken federal money for research-- should society require Tesla to charge families making $800k more for their luxury car than families making $280k? IF not, why would we require Harvard to do it? To my mind Harvard is a luxury just like a luxury car.
Well said!
Nobody is entitled to an elite education. Plenty of excellent options that will be affordable.
But if you really want it, just like a luxury car, you can choose to divert your money to pay for it.
But no, someone making $800k should not pay more than someone making $280k. That is not poor, not MC. Wealthy do not need to subdidize your kids education when you at in top 5%
If “nobody is entitled” then why do we have need based aid? The folks receiving that aid appear to be entitled to it.
Because the "underprivileged" often need a bit of help to get ahead. Someone with a family who only earns $45k/year has so many other issues and obstacles they have had to overcome to have the resume for getting accepted at a T25 school. Life is not so grand for them, because if they don't get into a need blind school that funds ALL need, they often cannot afford anything but CC and then transferring.
They certainly could not save much if any for college as they can barely manage to live on that. And the T25/elite colleges recognize the benefits of having more than just wealthy and UMC families on campus. For an underprivileged kid, the doors opened with a T25 education are numerous (not so much so for the UMC/Wealthy vs attending your state U).
However, the $280K (and really even the $200K) could have made choices to save and be able to afford college, even saving enough for $50-60K/year or more. These are private universities, they can choose how to spend their endowment on financial aid/merit awards. And no, I don't think someone making $200K is entitled to financial aid. If they did not save, then they can search merit and attend a private for minimal cost (not hard to do if their kid has stats for Harvard) or their instate flagship, etc. They have many choices still available to them.
But the argument those that get "need based aid" are entitled is ridiculous. Do you go around lamenting that a family of 4 making only $30K gets food stamps while you making $200K has to pay for your own food? Doubt it, and I highly doubt you would want to change places with them in order to get the food stamps.
We provide help in many ways to better society as a whole. It benefits lower income students to get FA and be able to attend college (be it T25 or any college). Once they make the break out of poverty their kids will likely continue that path and often education is the key to having a good higher paying job (not all, but many jobs require it). So it benefits society to help ensure those kids have an opportunity.
If you are making $200K, your kids will be fine (or they should be anyways) no matter where they attend. They have so many privileges growing up it's difficult to enumerate.
Note, we don't usually hear people making $45K/year complaining if their kid does not get into Harvard/Yale/etc. They move on and find anyway they can to get their kid an education that is affordable to them---they are just thrilled their kid is getting the opportunity to attend any college.
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