FA shouldn't go to people with 1 million dollar houses

[Anonymous]

I am a single mother that makes 55,000 per year! My son's father barely supports him! I have a home and my DS will be starting first grade at a private school this fall thanks to FA. After reading this forum I am very worried about the mindset of parents towards families that receive FA! Are your kids going to bring dinner conversations into school? If my child does not look "poor" enough is there going to be a mob of angry parents demanding my tax info! I am a wonderful saver and shopper! I do not shop often but when I do I love to shop at second hand stores! My DS always looks great because his mother is a savvy shopper! Are parents going to look him in possibly a name brand outfit and make assumptions? Even though I may have paid LESS than Target prices! If we go to the beach for the weekend and he comes to school and mentions it, are parents going to lose their minds? I surely hope this is not the case! Becase you will never hear me bragging about FA. I am grateful, but hurt that I can not afford to send my child to this wonderful school with out assistance! However, if I were to even catch a wisper of some parent making a remark to me or my child that I feel is inappropiate I would/will confront that person! KNOW for sure what you are talking about before you assume a situation! Your gossip can hurt a child! I surely hope this will never be the case but after reading this forum I am prepared to deal with any parent that thinks they have the right to make judgements about my FA situation! So I urge you all to think about the damage you could do if you let your thoughts turn into words!

[Anonymous]

thank you PP for reminding everyone that this is about the kids. you sound like someone I would be friends with as we have lots in common. my mom teases me all the time, when did you get to be so cheap? and I snap back when I decided to send your grandchild to private school!!

[Anonymous]

I'd like to hear from the million dollar house dweller receiving financial aid who says I and others have NO CLUE. Well, please, clue me in. If you're telling me you have a million dollar mortgage, I say, okay, you're an idiot. You can't afford that, clearly. Sell your house (without any equity) and rent something you can afford. If you say there is a tax advantage, that's true. But that doesn't mean you live in a house you can't afford for a tax break. You live in a house you CAN afford for a tax break, or you rent. You don't penalize other children of need because you spent more on housing than you should have.

If on the other hand you actually have some substantial equity left in your house, tell me why it's fair that you accumulate wealth while borrowing from others.
**

That would be me. So I can use zillow too and see our house is estimated at $1 million. That is a zillow estimate. The real value is more like 850 best based on comparables on the street. The tax assessed value has gone from 600 all the way to $1.1 million and has now headed back down to 900 or so. The mortgage total is at just over 750. After taxes and commissions etc there is nothing left if we sold. Why would we sell in this market anyway? Call me an idiot, fine I can take it. Bt it isn;t very nice to namecall or accuse when you know one fact (an expensive house) without knowing any other inputs into the FA decisions, other aspects of our financial situation.

Regarding the house in question, the monthly mortgage is not unreasonable, how much do you think a 3 bedroom apartment or rental costs in a safe neighborhood where we can walk to work and school? With the tax advantage, it makes owning better than renting. We are certainly not accumulating wealth, but if we do then we would expect to get less or no FA. If we had savings, more equity, higher incomes,less expenses, etc, then our financial situation would be different and viewed differently by our school.

We are not penalizing other children of need. That is a pretty outrageous accusation. If the school deemed us not needy of FA we would not get any. We wouldn't. It is not merit based. It is measured by financial models which take all the inputs and spit out what the parent contribution should be. The schools consider this number when awarding aid. In a city like DC a school may award a bit more more aid given the cost of living. How are we penalizing other children? Because we are taking money away from the FA pot? The school wants a balance of full pays, full scholarships and partial pays. We are grateful for the FA we get, and will at some point give back what we can, as we can.

[Anonymous]

1:04 You are missing the point. Some of us think the system is flawed. People are getting FA and then driving fancing cars and taking expensive vacations and sending their children to pricey summer camps -- obviously they are not hurting that much, they are not one mortgage payment away from financial ruin. Schools notice this.

[Anonymous]

The most dangerous thing about this kind of speculation and gossip about FA recipients is the effect that parents' attitudes can have on their children. Are parents aware that their prejudiced views and attitudes can ride on the backs of their children into the school and poison the community there? There are parents at my son's private school who openly and contemptuously refer to an FA recipient as a "scholarship kid" and imply that such a student is less entitled than a full-paying student. When their children hear such remarks, of course it changes how they think about their classmates that receive FA.

Come on, parents, model the caring for and tolerance of others that you would have your own children exhibit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: how much do you think a 3 bedroom apartment or rental costs in a safe neighborhood where we can walk to work and school?

I think this quote and others further up the chain show that this debate is based on very different points of view. Many people, myself included, believe that there are lots of safe neighborhoods. They may just not be within walking distance of work and school. Or not within walking distance of a school you deem suitable (though many others have no choice). And that is not getting into the notion that many people don't have the choice of a "safe" neighborhood. So we all make choices -- you could have chosen to live in suburb with better schools and cheaper homes. But you valued "a safe neighborhood where we can walk to work and school" and still lament that the choice means you can't pay for a private school and require financial aid. Likewise, as someone else asked -- yes, a parent should be begrudged for buying a BMW if they are on financial aid. Used or new, a BMW is significantly more expensive than the vast majority of other cars, by far, and the extra $10,000 or whatever could and should go to tuition. I will never own a BMW because I will never be able to afford it. Likewise, I might begrudge fancy vacations, even if someone else pays for them. I can't afford vacations overseas and neither can anyone in my family -- I have been once my whole life, my parents have never been. They paid for my college instead. That is the way many others are affording tuition -- by making small and large sacrifices in their choices on all these issues, from cars to cell phones, to where they live.

I guess I am saying that people are arguing from very different perspectives and based on vastly different assumptions of what things are necessities in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: how much do you think a 3 bedroom apartment or rental costs in a safe neighborhood where we can walk to work and school?

I think this quote and others further up the chain show that this debate is based on very different points of view. Many people, myself included, believe that there are lots of safe neighborhoods. They may just not be within walking distance of work and school. Or not within walking distance of a school you deem suitable (though many others have no choice). And that is not getting into the notion that many people don't have the choice of a "safe" neighborhood. So we all make choices -- you could have chosen to live in suburb with better schools and cheaper homes. But you valued "a safe neighborhood where we can walk to work and school" and still lament that the choice means you can't pay for a private school and require financial aid. Likewise, as someone else asked -- yes, a parent should be begrudged for buying a BMW if they are on financial aid. Used or new, a BMW is significantly more expensive than the vast majority of other cars, by far, and the extra $10,000 or whatever could and should go to tuition. I will never own a BMW because I will never be able to afford it. Likewise, I might begrudge fancy vacations, even if someone else pays for them. I can't afford vacations overseas and neither can anyone in my family -- I have been once my whole life, my parents have never been. They paid for my college instead. That is the way many others are affording tuition -- by making small and large sacrifices in their choices on all these issues, from cars to cell phones, to where they live.

I guess I am saying that people are arguing from very different perspectives and based on vastly different assumptions of what things are necessities in life.

The choices you described making are your choices. FA offices do not prescribe how one should live if one is an FA recipient. I guess that's what bothers may of you: that you can't tell an FA recipient how to live.

[Anonymous]

I guess that's what bothers may of you: that you can't tell an FA recipient how to live.

No one is. But I can formulate an opinion about the conspicuous consumption of FA recipients -- a handful, to be sure. Their lifestyle choices suggest something is wrong with the system,that some parents view private school as a right rather than a privilege. Also, schools notice this behavior, as several posters indicated. Also, talk about modeling. Families that get FA and then drive BMWs and take fancy vacations are sending a terrible message to their children, in my humble opinion.

[Anonymous]

Actually, yes, that does bother me (different poster).

I don't receive financial aid, I live in a modest house which is not walking distance to anything. But I certainly can swing the tuition. I'm high income ($200K a year). I am thrilled that we have kids at my son's school who would not be able to attend this school without aid. I'm thrilled that there are a lot of them.

I am happy to help middle indome parents narrow the gap between their means and and the hefty expenditure of private school.

I am not, however, thrilled about supporting the mortgage payment for a Georgetown row house for a family that makes more than I do. Financial aid is not just sitting in a magical pot. It is funded, and people have the right to hope that these funds are targeted toward those with need, just as we have the right to hope that any aid is targeted efficiently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I am not, however, thrilled about supporting the mortgage payment for a Georgetown row house for a family that makes more than I do. Financial aid is not just sitting in a magical pot. It is funded, and people have the right to hope that these funds are targeted toward those with need, just as we have the right to hope that any aid is targeted efficiently.

Even if you are right about how much money the family in the Georgetown rowhouse makes, you don't know all of their circumstances and are basing your dudgeon on unfounded inferences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am saying that people are arguing from very different perspectives and based on vastly different assumptions of what things are necessities in life.

You are so right! I've lived at all sorts of income levels -- from below the poverty line (but not welfare dependent or hungry) to affluent (but not wealthy enough that the next generation can live at the same level without having good jobs of their own) -- and it's interesting to see what people think they are entitled to and how they talk about "choice" without recognizing how radically different the available options are at different income levels. And, so often, their comparisons are to people at similar income levels and all they see is what someone else has that they lack. So my law partners or neighbors all send their kids to private school -- I deserve that too, even though I can't afford it because I have medical expenses or bought my house at the peak of the market. They don't compare themselves to people who have less -- e.g. this kid will be going to a terrible public school if she can't get into private and my kid would be going to a decent public school. And the adults in her family are already living frugally and working multiple jobs.

In the end, though, I wonder about the economics. How much FA goes toward discounting tuition enough to find more buyers for private school? If $30,000 of FA goes to five high income families who, together, pay the equivalent of four full tuitions is the $30,000 better spent from the school's financial perspective than if the school were to give the whole $30,000 to one kid? In each case the school has spent the same amount, but in one case it generated significant income and in another it generated no income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing... there are always people who are going to get over! So what! Some of the people complainig about FA Fraud are the same ones who test prepped their kids or used a connection to get their DC in a certain school! SOME even bought their way in to the school by promising large donations! SO you can't get around so called FRAUD! I am sure there are some super smart interesting kids who scored 99's on the WPPSI (w/o any help) who were waitlisted or rejected because some parent used wealth and connections to leverage their DC chances of getting into a particular school! LET IT GO!!! Some how, some way, someone is going to have to pay for it! If you are this disturbed about it STOP DONATING!! THEN you do not have to feel someone is getting YOUR money! It's actually a pretty simple fix!!

Very good points made here. Can all of the posters who are holier-than-thou disclaim ever having benefited from an advantage that could be deemed unfair from another's perspective? Take a look in the mirror, everyone.

[Anonymous]

23:45

I pay full tuition. My tuition keeps going up. Not donating is not going to solve the problem. I am not accusing anyone of fraud. I am simply wondering why people who could, if they chose to, make ends meet without FA but want to keep living the good life while sending their child or children to private school. Do you defend that? Do you think it's great that families get FA and then drive fancy cars, take expensive trips and send their children to pricey sleepaway camps? Is that good? Is that right? If you think as much, that's your business. I'm not asking you to change your opinion. Please stop asking me to change mine.

[Anonymous]

Gotta love the "you're all just as self-serving and corrupt as I am" approach. Hard as it may be for you to believe, there are actually hard-working, honest people who contribute more and demand less than you and the people you apparently identify with do.

[Anonymous]

Oops, should have quoted! 9:24 was a response to 9:10 (holier-than-thou) -- not 9:22. Probably clear from context, but sometimes these discussions get hard to follow.