Why the middle class has a huge disadvantage in admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not use the state school option?

A lot of middle class do it.
But the conversation with your teenager is not going to be easy.
Kid: I am so excited to be accepted to my favorite and top college in the country.
You: We can’t afford 80k a year, instead you should go to state university.
Kid : So, tell me why I was working so hard in high school?
You : Well…

Your kid isn’t getting in to the Harvards of the world (neither is mine). But if a/he got in, you would figure it out. 84% of students accepted to Harvard accepted a spot there this year. There were some that chose other schools but it is unlikely that many kids got in who decided not to go because of the cost. The data doesn’t support this.

Not Harvard but DC was accepted to t-10 college.
And that’s the exact conversation we had.

Honestly that seems like a parenting fail. Why would you allow your DC to apply to a reach school that doesn’t have merit and you can’t afford? In the event he won the admissions lottery, you would have to crush him pretty hard.

I think most kids who apply to T10’s will have parents who will stretch (maybe in an unhealthy way) to cover it if they make it in. I think many many kids don’t apply because they know they can’t pay for it. But this has always been true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bad news is that life is terribly unfair. The good news is the military is hiring & their education benefits are outstanding. So quit the I-live-in-McLean-and-only-make-$200k pouting & get your kid to start doing 200 push-ups per day.

Seems like the same advice should also go to low income people. Please quit the I-haven’t-figured-out-how-to-get-ahead-so-give-me-everything-for-free pouting.
It is true that life is unfair… for everyone.

I grew up in a high poverty area and I never knew a single kid who so much as applied to an Ivy school. This is a total myth invented by disgruntled high-income-but-not-rich yuppies.

All the smart kids from my husbands blue collar town in OH made it out. He had a single mother with 3 jobs.

Columbia, Duke, Hopkins, a few state flagships. Back then Pell grants and tuition not as outrageous made it possible. But it takes a good HS counselor and someone telling them they can do it.

The ones that screwed around and partied and got pregnant in high school or thought they were rich from their job at TJ Fridays are still there.

Of course they got out. They went to state flagships. Not expensive private colleges! Back in my day, 2005, that was not realistic.

Back in my day (poster) was the early 90s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^as if all of us did European vacations and drive Mercedes. LOL. Clueless. Net price calculator EVERYWHERE is that we will get $0. We saved, we aren't big spenders, etc.

There is this complete disconnect that people don't understand how hard some of us worked and the sacrifices we made after paying off our own student loans because now we fall just outside the aid group. And, any generational advantage we managed to scrape up to will essentially be wiped out by college tuition.

Instead of fighting with each other, we all need to demand something be done about the exorbitant cost of college these days. It will be $100k year soon for many of these private universities and the publics will bump accordingly. AT 85K, we aren't that far away from it.

Since you have struggled so much with student loan debt of your own (and your spouses), I would think you would understand that where you go does not matter---it's what you do while there and that student loan debt is NOT worth it. Amazing that you list that as a struggle yet somehow still think your kids and/or you should take on massive debt for college. Imagine the gift of state school or private with good merit that means your kid only takes on $27K total of debt and you take on none.

I was a STEM major, my kid is not. The actual school is much more important for future employment.

[Anonymous]

^ not to mention the connections and internships that school provides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is frustrating that if you make $250k now, the assumption is that you have been making $250k long enough to save $320k for your child's education. For those of us who only started making that amount of money when our child was in high school (with both parents working all along), that's not realistic.

It's not the end of the world; our child will be fine. But it's quite the bucket of cold water to realize that a whole lot of schools are completely inaccessible to your kid, schools that would have been accessible a few years ago when we made $100k.

And FWIW, I am fully aware that $250K is NOT middle class! It's a great income and we're grateful. But having that income now doesn't magically make $300k of savings appear.

I hear ya, sister!! Same.

If you were recently making 100k, then you should be able to live off off 100k and use that extra 150k per year you are now making to cash flow college. Seems like you're just fine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is frustrating that if you make $250k now, the assumption is that you have been making $250k long enough to save $320k for your child's education. For those of us who only started making that amount of money when our child was in high school (with both parents working all along), that's not realistic.

It's not the end of the world; our child will be fine. But it's quite the bucket of cold water to realize that a whole lot of schools are completely inaccessible to your kid, schools that would have been accessible a few years ago when we made $100k.

And FWIW, I am fully aware that $250K is NOT middle class! It's a great income and we're grateful. But having that income now doesn't magically make $300k of savings appear.

Here's an idea, you take the extra money you earned and put it to college savings if "top" privates are important to you. Even if you made $150K, you should have been saving at least for a state school and when you made much more put it into savings vs. lifestyle. So, just curious when you are screaming poverty at $250K, how much did your house cost, your cars, how many vacations, even weekend vacations did you take in the past 5 years? Much of it is lifestyle choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is frustrating that if you make $250k now, the assumption is that you have been making $250k long enough to save $320k for your child's education. For those of us who only started making that amount of money when our child was in high school (with both parents working all along), that's not realistic.

It's not the end of the world; our child will be fine. But it's quite the bucket of cold water to realize that a whole lot of schools are completely inaccessible to your kid, schools that would have been accessible a few years ago when we made $100k.

And FWIW, I am fully aware that $250K is NOT middle class! It's a great income and we're grateful. But having that income now doesn't magically make $300k of savings appear.

I hear ya, sister!! Same.

If you were recently making 100k, then you should be able to live off off 100k and use that extra 150k per year you are now making to cash flow college. Seems like you're just fine

Exactly this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the gist of this article/video for those who can’t see it?

Has little to do with most the comments here about donut hole aid.
It's referencing the recent NY Times article which is a summary of this research paper: https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Nontech.pdf

Controlling for other factors, students already in the 1% are significantly more likely to be admitted to elite schools.

Students in the 1% are slightly more likely to apply, that explains 20% of the disparity. Students in the 1% are more likely to attend if accepted that explains 12%. But students in the 1% are simply more likely to be admitted.

This in turn breaks down into three categories. They are more likely to be legacies, 46% (they also get a bigger legacy bump 5 fold for a legacy with income of $660k vs. 3 fold for a legacy with income $83k-$116k). They are more likely to be recruited athletes, 24%. But the remaining 30% is simply that their files receive higher non-academic ratings:

The remaining 30% of the admissions advantage for students from families in the top 1% is explained
by the fact that they are judged to have stronger non-academic credentials (e.g., extracurricular activities,
leadership traits, etc.) than students from lower-income families. The relationship between parental income
and non-academic credentials is mediated by high schools. Comparing non-legacy applicants with the same
test scores, demographics, and parental income, Ivy-Plus applicants who attend non-religious private high
schools are twice as likely to be admitted as those who attend public high schools in affluent neighborhoods.
Conditional on SAT/ACT scores, the academic ratings of students from private high schools with high
admissions rates are no higher than those from public high schools, but their non-academic ratings are
much higher. Since children from the top 1% are much more likely to attend private high schools, these
differences in non-academic credentialing across high schools contribute to the income gap in admissions
rates to Ivy-Plus colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get frustrated by people that get so bent out of shape about this.
I get being frustrated by the rich (I say we eat them! ) but the simmering resentment about people at lower incomes disturbs me.
Yes, you will not qualify for financial aid (or very little financial aid) if you are at a certain income level. But people just throw the word "aid" around like it's just a big present wrapped up in a bow with no strings attached. Yes, some aid is just a grant--essentially free money. You have to be very low income indeed to qualify for that. Would you really want your income to be that low, just for the four years of grant money that your student would be eligible for. Think of the impact that lower income has on every facet of a person's life. Do you really feel that they are getting some kind of unfair advantage because they get more money for this one thing, while you have access to more money for... everything else.

Lots of aid is work study. It's not a free ride--the student has to spend hours of their week doing work. We did not qualify for financial aid, but both of my kids have found part time work while they are in undergrad to offset living expenses. If your student doesn't get officially "work study" you can make your own work study.

Finally there's the financial aid that is loans. Loans are not free money. Loans have to be paid back, and they have to be paid back with interest. That student that got the big aid package is often getting a big loan with it. Yes, it's the "nicer" loan, but it's still a loan. It's still starting off post grad with debt, and because that student is from a lower income family they do not have the "cushion" that a student from a middle class family has.

I'm grateful that we had the means to put a lot of money into a 529 to pay for tuition at state schools. I'm grateful that we are able to continue to put that same amount of money away each month while they are in school to pay for rent/expenses as they finish up. We were able to do this because I used the many, MANY tools that are available to give middle class people a VERY CLEAR picture of the cost of education. Having that knowlege, and having the goal of paying for undergrad for our two children, allowed us to plan accordingly.
-We made it abundantly clear to our kids that we could do in-state tuition (or the equivalent if they somehow won the merit scholarship lottery)
-We live in a modest townhouse
-We have one car
-Our family vacation were in state parks, while some classmates went to Europe

I'm not begrudging people who made different choices. If we had more $$$, heck yeah I'd have done European vacations!
It would also be fun to be able to tell my kids they could go to literally any college they wanted, private or public, that would have them.
It's also fine for people to put a higher value on certain kinds of homes, or activities, and be putting less money away in college savings.
What bugs me is the griping from people who's kids are exiting high school that seem to suddenly have the huge amount of outrage, and act like this is some kind of new explosive revelation.

FWIW, I worked my entire way through college and my kids will likely need to as well if they choose to go private. That's because we are getting $0. And we fall in the donut hole.

I went to a state school and I and many of my friends had part-time jobs during school. It’s not a big deal.

I get that but it actually is a big deal for those of us who live in DC. We don’t qualify for any in state tuition. This is what’s so frustrating for us. Even with DC TAG we are looking at $50,000 a year for a state university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^as if all of us did European vacations and drive Mercedes. LOL. Clueless. Net price calculator EVERYWHERE is that we will get $0. We saved, we aren't big spenders, etc.

There is this complete disconnect that people don't understand how hard some of us worked and the sacrifices we made after paying off our own student loans because now we fall just outside the aid group. And, any generational advantage we managed to scrape up to will essentially be wiped out by college tuition.

Instead of fighting with each other, we all need to demand something be done about the exorbitant cost of college these days. It will be $100k year soon for many of these private universities and the publics will bump accordingly. AT 85K, we aren't that far away from it.

Since you have struggled so much with student loan debt of your own (and your spouses), I would think you would understand that where you go does not matter---it's what you do while there and that student loan debt is NOT worth it. Amazing that you list that as a struggle yet somehow still think your kids and/or you should take on massive debt for college. Imagine the gift of state school or private with good merit that means your kid only takes on $27K total of debt and you take on none.

I was a STEM major, my kid is not. The actual school is much more important for future employment.

For law, business and medicine, schools matter, but for things like CS it doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. We had to pay almost full private university tuition, except for a tiny Pell grant that was maybe $3000. Current price is almost $80,000/year. Parents = public school teacher + nurse.

Except... you didn't "have" to choose a private university. Plenty of state universities are available, including in your own state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not use the state school option?

A lot of middle class do it.
But the conversation with your teenager is not going to be easy.
Kid: I am so excited to be accepted to my favorite and top college in the country.
You: We can’t afford 80k a year, instead you should go to state university.
Kid : So, tell me why I was working so hard in high school?
You : Well…

No, the conversation should simply be: "We can afford to send you to an in-state university. We cannot afford OOS or private schools, so please don't apply to them."
Kid: "Ok."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not use the state school option?

A lot of middle class do it.
But the conversation with your teenager is not going to be easy.
Kid: I am so excited to be accepted to my favorite and top college in the country.
You: We can’t afford 80k a year, instead you should go to state university.
Kid : So, tell me why I was working so hard in high school?
You : Well…

So have this conversation with them when they start high school/ start thinking about colleges.

We did, but DC came up with different arguments like the state university is high school 2.0 and it is too big.

DP. So what? Tell them to deal with it. Your kid sounds incredibly spoiled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not use the state school option?

A lot of middle class do it.
But the conversation with your teenager is not going to be easy.
Kid: I am so excited to be accepted to my favorite and top college in the country.
You: We can’t afford 80k a year, instead you should go to state university.
Kid : So, tell me why I was working so hard in high school?
You : Well…

So have this conversation with them when they start high school/ start thinking about colleges.

We did, but DC came up with different arguments like the state university is high school 2.0 and it is too big.

DP. So what? Tell them to deal with it. Your kid sounds incredibly spoiled.

Then, they take out loans for the cost difference or work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe on their work resume then can have an asterisk next to their degree from state school

With the footnote:

*accepted to JHU, UPenn, Georgetown & Duke

When some snobby Ivy alum neighbors looked down their nose when they found out I attended my large state university, I wish I was wearing a sweatshirt that had that asterisk. I was #8 (back when there was actual true rank) out of 687 kids at my Fairfax Co high school, state champ varsity sport all 4 years, student body officer, high SAT score, etc etc

My parents would only allow me to apply in-state. Rich people don’t understand we can’t all afford Ivy/top private tuition and that limits our choices.

But, hey, we have the same lifestyle now and equivalent careers.