Are privates that don’t offer merit aid still enrolling the best students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is turning down an Ivy that’s $85k/year for a full ride at a flagship. According to my kid, they are far from the only one of their classmates making such a decision. Kids talk.

What are the consequences to this as the years go on & so many top students can’t afford elite privates?

It is an intriguing question. The demographics at the elite colleges have changed significantly in the last 20 years and what are the long term implications of this?

There were already kids turning down Ivies for full rides at state universities or just attending a much cheaper flagship honors program in the past. But I can easily see how this would be far more kids now than 20 years ago due to the rise of the donut hole families. I do think that Ivy prestige has steadily weakened over time, they no longer have the perceived lock on the best and brightest, especially as the professional classes now really understands the cost/benefit analysis, and also that Ivy admission is hardly meritocratic and is based on very different factors that have little to do with achievement. And others are less impressed by the behaviors and attitudes of elite college grads, fair or not, especially with cancel culture and the growth of rigid ideological outlooks that these schools have embraced (with some exceptions, like Chicago). Then we do have that there are many more best and brightest chasing after a limited number of spots, which actually means they end up being dispersed among a wider range of schools.

All in all, I am no longer "impressed" when I see an elite college decal on a car. I do think nice kid, bit lucky, and not much more than that. When evaluating candidates, if I notice their college on the resumes, I don't give weight to elite college grads over lesser college grads once above a certain threshold. What they actually did is much more important, along with impression in the interviews. Having said that, the Ivies will still produce genuinely impressive graduates who go on to achieve great things, but this is probably no more than 1/4 - 1/3 of their student body, with the rest not really meaningfully different from comparable students at UVA or College Park or Vanderbilt or whatever.

Where did you get your 1/4-1/3 stat?

FWIW, people have been turning down Ivies due to cost for more than 20 years. This isn't a new phenomenon.

The gulf in price between Ivies & state schools has exploded over the past 20 years. Lots of state schools have frozen tuition or let you lock in your tuition for all four years the year you enroll.

Yeah, but there were still kids with middle class parents turning down the Ivies in the '80s because the parents couldn't afford that tuition. The group may be larger now than then, but this isn't new though may be to you.

True. My brother and I were among them. Also most of the top students at my middle class suburban high school didn't even bother applying to schools they knew they couldn't afford because even the application fee was too much to pay for a lottery ticket.

+100

Youngest of 3 siblings and we only applied in-state. Very similar.

HS graduates in the 80s ^^

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is turning down an Ivy that’s $85k/year for a full ride at a flagship. According to my kid, they are far from the only one of their classmates making such a decision. Kids talk.

What are the consequences to this as the years go on & so many top students can’t afford elite privates?

It is an intriguing question. The demographics at the elite colleges have changed significantly in the last 20 years and what are the long term implications of this?

There were already kids turning down Ivies for full rides at state universities or just attending a much cheaper flagship honors program in the past. But I can easily see how this would be far more kids now than 20 years ago due to the rise of the donut hole families. I do think that Ivy prestige has steadily weakened over time, they no longer have the perceived lock on the best and brightest, especially as the professional classes now really understands the cost/benefit analysis, and also that Ivy admission is hardly meritocratic and is based on very different factors that have little to do with achievement. And others are less impressed by the behaviors and attitudes of elite college grads, fair or not, especially with cancel culture and the growth of rigid ideological outlooks that these schools have embraced (with some exceptions, like Chicago). Then we do have that there are many more best and brightest chasing after a limited number of spots, which actually means they end up being dispersed among a wider range of schools.

All in all, I am no longer "impressed" when I see an elite college decal on a car. I do think nice kid, bit lucky, and not much more than that. When evaluating candidates, if I notice their college on the resumes, I don't give weight to elite college grads over lesser college grads once above a certain threshold. What they actually did is much more important, along with impression in the interviews. Having said that, the Ivies will still produce genuinely impressive graduates who go on to achieve great things, but this is probably no more than 1/4 - 1/3 of their student body, with the rest not really meaningfully different from comparable students at UVA or College Park or Vanderbilt or whatever.

Where did you get your 1/4-1/3 stat?

FWIW, people have been turning down Ivies due to cost for more than 20 years. This isn't a new phenomenon.

The gulf in price between Ivies & state schools has exploded over the past 20 years. Lots of state schools have frozen tuition or let you lock in your tuition for all four years the year you enroll.

Yeah, but there were still kids with middle class parents turning down the Ivies in the '80s because the parents couldn't afford that tuition. The group may be larger now than then, but this isn't new though may be to you.

True. My brother and I were among them. Also most of the top students at my middle class suburban high school didn't even bother applying to schools they knew they couldn't afford because even the application fee was too much to pay for a lottery ticket.

+100

Youngest of 3 siblings and we only applied in-state. Very similar.

This is the reality for thousands of highly qualified kids all over the country. They simply never apply at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does this thread feel like sour grapes for those who can not afford to attend the Ivy they are qualified to attend?
Ivy level schools will not ever hurt for students of the highest caliber. There is way more qualified applicants than seats at those schools. If your child can not attend such a highly rated school that is fine and your child will do well wherever they attend but the T30 schools will still have an overabundance of the top qualified students to choose from. Parents have always looked at their children with bias thinking they are more unique than they really are.

+1000

There will also be "donut hole" families who have managed to save/make saving for education a priority. Schools like Harvard make it affordable for families making up to 150-200K. So while your family making 150-200K may not choose to save, there will still be plenty who do, so it will not be all "low income" and wealthy students.

Then again, it's the wealthy students who largely have the means to do the pointy ECs and win national awards, and have tutors to take 13+APs and still get all As. So the wealthy have an easier path to "having the resume for HYPSM

Oh please. Not all donut hold families can save $80/year per kid. Esp in high COLA areas where their jobs are. Between medical, taxes, child care early on, expenses associated with school, car payments (on very basic cars, no suburbans or Teslas here), mortgage (still in our starter home). . . . it's just not possible for two stable paid, but not wealthy, civil servants (non-SES).

So it is sour grapes. That doesn't mean that those families, like us, are wrong.

Did not say everyone could save. Said there will be some who figured out how to save and will attend an elite school as full pay or with minimal aid should they get accepted--not everyone in the "donut hole" area have sour grapes. But the good news is, if you kids has the stats for an elite school, they can attend a 30-100 ranked school with great merit, making the school much more affordable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is turning down an Ivy that’s $85k/year for a full ride at a flagship. According to my kid, they are far from the only one of their classmates making such a decision. Kids talk.

What are the consequences to this as the years go on & so many top students can’t afford elite privates?

Haven't you been reading these boards? There are more than enough bright students to go around.

One outcome may be that parents will learn how to save, starting at birth, instead of depending on the overpayment and generosity of others to fund their merit aid pools. Perhaps also have a family size you can afford the education of.

Some of us do and still cannot afford $85K a year. We had one child. Saved since birth. Bought a small sh@t shack (as in under 1000) square feet in a not so great neighborhood. So, our kid knows they can go to a school we can afford. Simple.

Nothing wrong with that. It's what should happen for all kids. Attend somewhere that's affordable to you. No reason to go into debt beyond the $27K federal max for student loans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What “still”? This has always been how it worked. What bubble did you grow up in that you think this is new?

Right? The smartest kids don't all go to elite private universities. Lots of extremely bright students attend their state flagship, for example. The top students at those schools are just as good as the kids who attend the Ivies, even if the overall spread at the school looks different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is turning down an Ivy that’s $85k/year for a full ride at a flagship. According to my kid, they are far from the only one of their classmates making such a decision. Kids talk.

What are the consequences to this as the years go on & so many top students can’t afford elite privates?

It is an intriguing question. The demographics at the elite colleges have changed significantly in the last 20 years and what are the long term implications of this?

There were already kids turning down Ivies for full rides at state universities or just attending a much cheaper flagship honors program in the past. But I can easily see how this would be far more kids now than 20 years ago due to the rise of the donut hole families. I do think that Ivy prestige has steadily weakened over time, they no longer have the perceived lock on the best and brightest, especially as the professional classes now really understands the cost/benefit analysis, and also that Ivy admission is hardly meritocratic and is based on very different factors that have little to do with achievement. And others are less impressed by the behaviors and attitudes of elite college grads, fair or not, especially with cancel culture and the growth of rigid ideological outlooks that these schools have embraced (with some exceptions, like Chicago). Then we do have that there are many more best and brightest chasing after a limited number of spots, which actually means they end up being dispersed among a wider range of schools.

All in all, I am no longer "impressed" when I see an elite college decal on a car. I do think nice kid, bit lucky, and not much more than that. When evaluating candidates, if I notice their college on the resumes, I don't give weight to elite college grads over lesser college grads once above a certain threshold. What they actually did is much more important, along with impression in the interviews. Having said that, the Ivies will still produce genuinely impressive graduates who go on to achieve great things, but this is probably no more than 1/4 - 1/3 of their student body, with the rest not really meaningfully different from comparable students at UVA or College Park or Vanderbilt or whatever.

Where did you get your 1/4-1/3 stat?

FWIW, people have been turning down Ivies due to cost for more than 20 years. This isn't a new phenomenon.

The gulf in price between Ivies & state schools has exploded over the past 20 years. Lots of state schools have frozen tuition or let you lock in your tuition for all four years the year you enroll.

Yeah, but there were still kids with middle class parents turning down the Ivies in the '80s because the parents couldn't afford that tuition. The group may be larger now than then, but this isn't new though may be to you.

True. My brother and I were among them. Also most of the top students at my middle class suburban high school didn't even bother applying to schools they knew they couldn't afford because even the application fee was too much to pay for a lottery ticket.

+100

Youngest of 3 siblings and we only applied in-state. Very similar.

I just had a flashback to 1993 (or was it '92?). Jim and Cindy Walsh sitting down their twins Brenda and Brandon and telling them they could only afford to send one twin to an out of state school. And it wasn't like the Walshes were poor either. UMC family all the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does this thread feel like sour grapes for those who can not afford to attend the Ivy they are qualified to attend?
Ivy level schools will not ever hurt for students of the highest caliber. There is way more qualified applicants than seats at those schools. If your child can not attend such a highly rated school that is fine and your child will do well wherever they attend but the T30 schools will still have an overabundance of the top qualified students to choose from. Parents have always looked at their children with bias thinking they are more unique than they really are.

What this thread doesn't tell you is that it's not unusual for ivy kids to turn down full-rides from state schools.

My guess is that most people in this thread do not need to be told that. Of the five Ivy admits in my HS graduating class, three took the state school full ride. All three had parents who were college professors or research scientists and there were more siblings in the pipeline to go to college. The fourth took a full tuition scholarship at an in-state private. And the fifth attended an Ivy when a local alum stepped forward to pay tuition. These parents were also college professors. They could swing room/board, but not the whole package.

This was 40 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is turning down an Ivy that’s $85k/year for a full ride at a flagship. According to my kid, they are far from the only one of their classmates making such a decision. Kids talk.

What are the consequences to this as the years go on & so many top students can’t afford elite privates?

It is an intriguing question. The demographics at the elite colleges have changed significantly in the last 20 years and what are the long term implications of this?

There were already kids turning down Ivies for full rides at state universities or just attending a much cheaper flagship honors program in the past. But I can easily see how this would be far more kids now than 20 years ago due to the rise of the donut hole families. I do think that Ivy prestige has steadily weakened over time, they no longer have the perceived lock on the best and brightest, especially as the professional classes now really understands the cost/benefit analysis, and also that Ivy admission is hardly meritocratic and is based on very different factors that have little to do with achievement. And others are less impressed by the behaviors and attitudes of elite college grads, fair or not, especially with cancel culture and the growth of rigid ideological outlooks that these schools have embraced (with some exceptions, like Chicago). Then we do have that there are many more best and brightest chasing after a limited number of spots, which actually means they end up being dispersed among a wider range of schools.

All in all, I am no longer "impressed" when I see an elite college decal on a car. I do think nice kid, bit lucky, and not much more than that. When evaluating candidates, if I notice their college on the resumes, I don't give weight to elite college grads over lesser college grads once above a certain threshold. What they actually did is much more important, along with impression in the interviews. Having said that, the Ivies will still produce genuinely impressive graduates who go on to achieve great things, but this is probably no more than 1/4 - 1/3 of their student body, with the rest not really meaningfully different from comparable students at UVA or College Park or Vanderbilt or whatever.

Where did you get your 1/4-1/3 stat?

FWIW, people have been turning down Ivies due to cost for more than 20 years. This isn't a new phenomenon.

The gulf in price between Ivies & state schools has exploded over the past 20 years. Lots of state schools have frozen tuition or let you lock in your tuition for all four years the year you enroll.

Yeah, but there were still kids with middle class parents turning down the Ivies in the '80s because the parents couldn't afford that tuition. The group may be larger now than then, but this isn't new though may be to you.

True. My brother and I were among them. Also most of the top students at my middle class suburban high school didn't even bother applying to schools they knew they couldn't afford because even the application fee was too much to pay for a lottery ticket.

When I graduated from high school in 1980, the mantra was that if you could get into a school, you could find a way to attend. At that time the tuition, room, and board at the NESCAC school I attended cost about $8K. Many of my middle and upper-middle class New England high school classmates went to private schools, as well.

I contributed about $2K/year towards the cost from summer earnings, covered my own books and miscellaneous expenses, took out a student loan for $1500-$2K/year, and my parents paid the rest. They did this for all six of their kids at private schools, paying over time (not in a lump sum) under arrangements with each school. It was a stretch for them relative to what the state flagship would have been, but it was doable, and the modest low-interest student debt we incurred was manageable.

The year I went abroad, the tuition cost $800 because the program was at the European university through an American school. My room and board was $300 a month. My parents saved a lot of money that year relative to what they would have paid for my on-campus costs.

Fast-forward, the same NESCAC school now costs $86K/year. A family like the one I grew up in could never in a million years pull off what my parents did.

Apples and oranges.

Yes, very common. I entered college @ ~$6000/year and graduated at ~$13,000 four years later.

But how did you pull down 2000 in a summer when minimum wage was 3.10 in 1980 and 3.35 starting in 1981? Twelve weeks @ 3.10/hour x 40 hours = $1488. Very few folks i knew were able to land a job for much more than minimum wage but may have also been due to the region of the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If what you want to hear and believe is that students at state schools are the best then sure go ahead and believe this. But this looks to be a question begging for a specific answer for the purpose of soothing someone’s feelings. You can be very smart and talented and choose to go to a state school for a variety of reasons.

???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does this thread feel like sour grapes for those who can not afford to attend the Ivy they are qualified to attend?
Ivy level schools will not ever hurt for students of the highest caliber. There is way more qualified applicants than seats at those schools. If your child can not attend such a highly rated school that is fine and your child will do well wherever they attend but the T30 schools will still have an overabundance of the top qualified students to choose from. Parents have always looked at their children with bias thinking they are more unique than they really are.

+1000

There will also be "donut hole" families who have managed to save/make saving for education a priority. Schools like Harvard make it affordable for families making up to 150-200K. So while your family making 150-200K may not choose to save, there will still be plenty who do, so it will not be all "low income" and wealthy students.

Then again, it's the wealthy students who largely have the means to do the pointy ECs and win national awards, and have tutors to take 13+APs and still get all As. So the wealthy have an easier path to "having the resume for HYPSM

Oh please. Not all donut hold families can save $80/year per kid. Esp in high COLA areas where their jobs are. Between medical, taxes, child care early on, expenses associated with school, car payments (on very basic cars, no suburbans or Teslas here), mortgage (still in our starter home). . . . it's just not possible for two stable paid, but not wealthy, civil servants (non-SES).

So it is sour grapes. That doesn't mean that those families, like us, are wrong.

This. In Fairfax county, teacher and police officers are donut hole.

Can someone put a $$$ amount of income that they define as donut hole?

Go to any Ivy League expected cost calculator. Input a $300k income with $100,000 in a 529, $100,000 in house equity, etc....and every school says they will give you like $25k-$30k (Princeton was highest at like $40k) per year. That is if you only have 1 kid attending...I assume they will give you more with multiple. Again, if you are getting a free ride vs. even a net cost of $50k you will probably take it.

How much do two Fairfax county teachers make? More than $300k?

Are the expected cost calculators lying, or are people defining a donut-hole income as something very high...where no one else would ever define it that high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does this thread feel like sour grapes for those who can not afford to attend the Ivy they are qualified to attend?
Ivy level schools will not ever hurt for students of the highest caliber. There is way more qualified applicants than seats at those schools. If your child can not attend such a highly rated school that is fine and your child will do well wherever they attend but the T30 schools will still have an overabundance of the top qualified students to choose from. Parents have always looked at their children with bias thinking they are more unique than they really are.

+1000

There will also be "donut hole" families who have managed to save/make saving for education a priority. Schools like Harvard make it affordable for families making up to 150-200K. So while your family making 150-200K may not choose to save, there will still be plenty who do, so it will not be all "low income" and wealthy students.

Then again, it's the wealthy students who largely have the means to do the pointy ECs and win national awards, and have tutors to take 13+APs and still get all As. So the wealthy have an easier path to "having the resume for HYPSM

Oh please. Not all donut hold families can save $80/year per kid. Esp in high COLA areas where their jobs are. Between medical, taxes, child care early on, expenses associated with school, car payments (on very basic cars, no suburbans or Teslas here), mortgage (still in our starter home). . . . it's just not possible for two stable paid, but not wealthy, civil servants (non-SES).

So it is sour grapes. That doesn't mean that those families, like us, are wrong.

This. In Fairfax county, teacher and police officers are donut hole.

Can someone put a $$$ amount of income that they define as donut hole?

Go to any Ivy League expected cost calculator. Input a $300k income with $100,000 in a 529, $100,000 in house equity, etc....and every school says they will give you like $25k-$30k (Princeton was highest at like $40k) per year. That is if you only have 1 kid attending...I assume they will give you more with multiple. Again, if you are getting a free ride vs. even a net cost of $50k you will probably take it.

How much do two Fairfax county teachers make? More than $300k?

Are the expected cost calculators lying, or are people defining a donut-hole income as something very high...where no one else would ever define it that high.

It will be different for everyone. Basically, anyone that is price-sensitive. If your income is low enough, your aid package is large enough that you are no longer price-sensitive. If your income is large enough, the costs are not a significant deterent and you are not price-sensitive. In between is the donut hole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does this thread feel like sour grapes for those who can not afford to attend the Ivy they are qualified to attend?
Ivy level schools will not ever hurt for students of the highest caliber. There is way more qualified applicants than seats at those schools. If your child can not attend such a highly rated school that is fine and your child will do well wherever they attend but the T30 schools will still have an overabundance of the top qualified students to choose from. Parents have always looked at their children with bias thinking they are more unique than they really are.

+1000

There will also be "donut hole" families who have managed to save/make saving for education a priority. Schools like Harvard make it affordable for families making up to 150-200K. So while your family making 150-200K may not choose to save, there will still be plenty who do, so it will not be all "low income" and wealthy students.

Then again, it's the wealthy students who largely have the means to do the pointy ECs and win national awards, and have tutors to take 13+APs and still get all As. So the wealthy have an easier path to "having the resume for HYPSM

Oh please. Not all donut hold families can save $80/year per kid. Esp in high COLA areas where their jobs are. Between medical, taxes, child care early on, expenses associated with school, car payments (on very basic cars, no suburbans or Teslas here), mortgage (still in our starter home). . . . it's just not possible for two stable paid, but not wealthy, civil servants (non-SES).

So it is sour grapes. That doesn't mean that those families, like us, are wrong.

This. In Fairfax county, teacher and police officers are donut hole.

Can someone put a $$$ amount of income that they define as donut hole?

Go to any Ivy League expected cost calculator. Input a $300k income with $100,000 in a 529, $100,000 in house equity, etc....and every school says they will give you like $25k-$30k (Princeton was highest at like $40k) per year. That is if you only have 1 kid attending...I assume they will give you more with multiple. Again, if you are getting a free ride vs. even a net cost of $50k you will probably take it.

How much do two Fairfax county teachers make? More than $300k?

Are the expected cost calculators lying, or are people defining a donut-hole income as something very high...where no one else would ever define it that high.

Aid starts phasing out at about 150k. I define it as between that number and somewhere in the mid 200s. The number is probably lower in a loc col area, but two teachers living in Fairfax are going to spend a large amount of their income on housing, so even with $180k combined, they won't be able to save like a lawyer in Abingdon making the same salary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is turning down an Ivy that’s $85k/year for a full ride at a flagship. According to my kid, they are far from the only one of their classmates making such a decision. Kids talk.

What are the consequences to this as the years go on & so many top students can’t afford elite privates?

It is an intriguing question. The demographics at the elite colleges have changed significantly in the last 20 years and what are the long term implications of this?

There were already kids turning down Ivies for full rides at state universities or just attending a much cheaper flagship honors program in the past. But I can easily see how this would be far more kids now than 20 years ago due to the rise of the donut hole families. I do think that Ivy prestige has steadily weakened over time, they no longer have the perceived lock on the best and brightest, especially as the professional classes now really understands the cost/benefit analysis, and also that Ivy admission is hardly meritocratic and is based on very different factors that have little to do with achievement. And others are less impressed by the behaviors and attitudes of elite college grads, fair or not, especially with cancel culture and the growth of rigid ideological outlooks that these schools have embraced (with some exceptions, like Chicago). Then we do have that there are many more best and brightest chasing after a limited number of spots, which actually means they end up being dispersed among a wider range of schools.

All in all, I am no longer "impressed" when I see an elite college decal on a car. I do think nice kid, bit lucky, and not much more than that. When evaluating candidates, if I notice their college on the resumes, I don't give weight to elite college grads over lesser college grads once above a certain threshold. What they actually did is much more important, along with impression in the interviews. Having said that, the Ivies will still produce genuinely impressive graduates who go on to achieve great things, but this is probably no more than 1/4 - 1/3 of their student body, with the rest not really meaningfully different from comparable students at UVA or College Park or Vanderbilt or whatever.

Where did you get your 1/4-1/3 stat?

FWIW, people have been turning down Ivies due to cost for more than 20 years. This isn't a new phenomenon.

The gulf in price between Ivies & state schools has exploded over the past 20 years. Lots of state schools have frozen tuition or let you lock in your tuition for all four years the year you enroll.

Yeah, but there were still kids with middle class parents turning down the Ivies in the '80s because the parents couldn't afford that tuition. The group may be larger now than then, but this isn't new though may be to you.

True. My brother and I were among them. Also most of the top students at my middle class suburban high school didn't even bother applying to schools they knew they couldn't afford because even the application fee was too much to pay for a lottery ticket.

When I graduated from high school in 1980, the mantra was that if you could get into a school, you could find a way to attend. At that time the tuition, room, and board at the NESCAC school I attended cost about $8K. Many of my middle and upper-middle class New England high school classmates went to private schools, as well.

I contributed about $2K/year towards the cost from summer earnings, covered my own books and miscellaneous expenses, took out a student loan for $1500-$2K/year, and my parents paid the rest. They did this for all six of their kids at private schools, paying over time (not in a lump sum) under arrangements with each school. It was a stretch for them relative to what the state flagship would have been, but it was doable, and the modest low-interest student debt we incurred was manageable.

The year I went abroad, the tuition cost $800 because the program was at the European university through an American school. My room and board was $300 a month. My parents saved a lot of money that year relative to what they would have paid for my on-campus costs.

Fast-forward, the same NESCAC school now costs $86K/year. A family like the one I grew up in could never in a million years pull off what my parents did.

Apples and oranges.

Yes, very common. I entered college @ ~$6000/year and graduated at ~$13,000 four years later.

But how did you pull down 2000 in a summer when minimum wage was 3.10 in 1980 and 3.35 starting in 1981? Twelve weeks @ 3.10/hour x 40 hours = $1488. Very few folks i knew were able to land a job for much more than minimum wage but may have also been due to the region of the country.

Late 80s/early 90s, I worked Kings dominion. min wage was $4.25 M-F and $5.25 for overtime, weekends and holidays. I used to work 50-60 hour weeks---whatever they would allow over my 6 days. I also held a separate job for 1 day/week for Fast Food. So I made ~$3500/summer and would work the FF job over breaks. So back then, I earned ~$4500-5K/year from those 2 jobs. It's what I had to do to be able to afford college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does this thread feel like sour grapes for those who can not afford to attend the Ivy they are qualified to attend?
Ivy level schools will not ever hurt for students of the highest caliber. There is way more qualified applicants than seats at those schools. If your child can not attend such a highly rated school that is fine and your child will do well wherever they attend but the T30 schools will still have an overabundance of the top qualified students to choose from. Parents have always looked at their children with bias thinking they are more unique than they really are.

+1000

There will also be "donut hole" families who have managed to save/make saving for education a priority. Schools like Harvard make it affordable for families making up to 150-200K. So while your family making 150-200K may not choose to save, there will still be plenty who do, so it will not be all "low income" and wealthy students.

Then again, it's the wealthy students who largely have the means to do the pointy ECs and win national awards, and have tutors to take 13+APs and still get all As. So the wealthy have an easier path to "having the resume for HYPSM

Oh please. Not all donut hold families can save $80/year per kid. Esp in high COLA areas where their jobs are. Between medical, taxes, child care early on, expenses associated with school, car payments (on very basic cars, no suburbans or Teslas here), mortgage (still in our starter home). . . . it's just not possible for two stable paid, but not wealthy, civil servants (non-SES).

So it is sour grapes. That doesn't mean that those families, like us, are wrong.

This. In Fairfax county, teacher and police officers are donut hole.

Can someone put a $$$ amount of income that they define as donut hole?

Go to any Ivy League expected cost calculator. Input a $300k income with $100,000 in a 529, $100,000 in house equity, etc....and every school says they will give you like $25k-$30k (Princeton was highest at like $40k) per year. That is if you only have 1 kid attending...I assume they will give you more with multiple. Again, if you are getting a free ride vs. even a net cost of $50k you will probably take it.

How much do two Fairfax county teachers make? More than $300k?

Are the expected cost calculators lying, or are people defining a donut-hole income as something very high...where no one else would ever define it that high.

I can't tell if that was a rhetorical question...two county teachers probably make HALF that amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is turning down an Ivy that’s $85k/year for a full ride at a flagship. According to my kid, they are far from the only one of their classmates making such a decision. Kids talk.

What are the consequences to this as the years go on & so many top students can’t afford elite privates?

Haven't you been reading these boards? There are more than enough bright students to go around.

One outcome may be that parents will learn how to save, starting at birth, instead of depending on the overpayment and generosity of others to fund their merit aid pools. Perhaps also have a family size you can afford the education of.

Some of us do and still cannot afford $85K a year. We had one child. Saved since birth. Bought a small sh@t shack (as in under 1000) square feet in a not so great neighborhood. So, our kid knows they can go to a school we can afford. Simple.

Nothing wrong with that. It's what should happen for all kids. Attend somewhere that's affordable to you. No reason to go into debt beyond the $27K federal max for student loans.

That's beside the point. After working hard, saving, the kids killing themselves in HS . . . they shouldn't have to. It should be affordable for all, not just the rich and the poor. Your condescending lecture on the issue notwithstanding.