What money is fair game for financial aid?
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Anonymous
You conveniently left out room and board, which more than doubles it. |
Anonymous
They can live at home. |
Anonymous
Charlottesville to northern Virginia for classes would be interesting |
Anonymous
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I have saved enough for my children to go college - of their choice. I started saving at the birth of my first child was born. But I grew up extraordinarily poor - qualified for full pellets grants. So, while I have enough money (thanks for your concern $11k tuition poster /s), I can see the inequity of a kid not being able to an in state school. And yes there will be some kids, who won’t be accepted at UVA, W&M (not mine - straight As/super high SAT thank again for your concern $11k poster /s). But if a poor kid is like mine - and I was - high achieving academically, the cost of school is a huge hurdle. And it comes down to what Nicholas Kristin calls the lottery of birth.
Everyone in Virginia, especially mom voters, should remember the lack of empathy for kids when voting. And the fact that some kids have won the lottery at birth - and many of those parents/families now want to just shut down the lottery, so they can continue to keep winning and winning the lottery year after year. Community college should be free. And the “sticker price” of college should be transparent, so first generation and lower income families understand college costs. For those at the top - “I am a responsible parent so I have enough money” - if you consider yourself a Christian, please reflect on what you are doing and saying. And if you are like the $11k tuition poster, think how many spots would open up for your snowflake at UVA if community college was free. |
Anonymous
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This explained everything perfectly! 🤗 |
Anonymous
Was that intentional, so they could only finagle a low payment of child support out of him?? He sounds like a real catch. 🙄 |
Anonymous
And UVA out of state is about $55,000 a year. That's an INSANE difference. |
Anonymous
Exactly this. All of this. We finger-point, blame, defend, etc. amongst ourselves on this thread but the root of the problem is systemic. |
Anonymous
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"My kids are not in college yet and will go to a state school that we did a prepaid for as we are responsible parents."
Ergo, other parents aren't responsible? BS. My sister has 3 kids. She thought she'd have two. But surprise, twins! She's a school teacher in Texas in a district without a union. Her husband took off when he couldn't handle the stress of twins and is now a deadbeat dad who only pays $200/month total in child support that is supposed to help her feed all three kids, who are all teen boys btw and eat a ton of food. He remarried and they had a new house built in some dumb subdivision, so not hurting at all financially. Anyway, there is no way that she could afford to save enough money to put all three boys through college. She is just above the threshold to qualify for food stamps, for pete's sake. At least 3-4 times a year I need to send money to literally keep the electric company from turning off the lights. The only saving being done for her kids is by me and my sister. This is a full time, college degreed public school teacher. STFU with your "responsible parents" arguments. She had children when she was married and both parents had full time jobs. Whatever equity she manages to build up in her sad little house out in the county with a septic tank and chickens running around should not be seen as a resource for college. Hell, her public school system's health insurance has a $4,000 annual deductible. In other words, she pays out of her own tiny paycheck $4K before the insurance company kicks in its first dollar. That's about 10% of her income, post tax. Only an cruel anti-humanity idiot would say that she's an irresponsible parent for not having paid enough into some pre-paid tuition plan. Oh, and BTW DC parents don't have the option of paying into any such plan. |
Anonymous
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"My husband never gave his financial information to the colleges for his kids. The kids demanded he send it to them and he said no, I'll send it to the school, provide me the information and they never did. So, his wasn't used. (he also was willing to help pay for college but insisted on paying the school directly vs. the kids or ex-wife)"
Are you arguing that your husband was "in the right" to not provide this information? I literally just sent a note to my ex yesterday asking for this so that we can do the online cost calculators for each college our kid is interested in applying to. We need that info to determine if it's even worth the time and fee to apply. And for FAFSA, the school doesn't get ask for the money info, the federal government asks. If the dad provides more of the child's support, it's his responsibility to fill out the FAFSA with his financial info. That's the requirement. The parents have to talk and determine which one is supposed to fill out the form. If you don't fill it out but you're supposed to, you're screwing your kids. If you lie and claim you're not the parent who should fill it out, that's fraud. For CSS, he needed to provide the info (on both his own finances as well as yours!) regardless of whether he or his ex wife contributed more money to the children. I'm struggling to see how he was justified in refusing to do any of this. |
Anonymous
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I grew up working class in the 1980s. I was accepted into every Ivy and top school I applied to, and the tuition at my college was about the same as my family's household income. So, I obviously benefitted tremendously from financial aid. Today, I earn a very good salary and my kid isn't going to have to worry about paying for school. But it is freaking ridiculous that the costs are what they are, even for schools that are nowhere near the level of a Stanford or Harvard. Just because I'm able to provide this level of financial resources to my kid doesn't mean that it's right that all parents should have to feel like this is a responsibility, or that they've failed if they don't have $400K set aside. I'm well aware of how rarified it is to be in my financial position. This is NOT NORMAL. These costs are out of this world. We might not be able to change all of the policies that support this insanity anytime soon. But at the very least, we should at least be able to have an honest and open conversation where nobody tries to gaslight others about this f'd up situation we all finds ourselves in.
NO. Having a fully funded pre-paid college plan is not the equivalent of being a responsible parent. YES. A brilliant student with a ton of potential should be able to go to the school that will best nurture that brilliance. We need more schools and fed dollars that will make up the difference between a family's ability to pay and the cost of attending. This is a societal investment. We need to power out our best and brightest so that we can continue to lead the world in innovation. You don't get excellence by making your best and brightest go to a middle of the road school in a place where mediocrity is considered good enough. There is absolutely no way I'd be making the contributions to society that I can currently am if I'd stayed in my local community doing some 2+2 program. I've never seen a single person from my neighborhood survive the first two years of community college without falling off track. Those programs are completely unworkable for people living in 2-bedroom houses with 6 people and families with lots of drama that is a normal part of life in the working class and the poor. Never mind that in most American cities the public transportation systems are terrible so any student attending community college classes is going to need a car and gas & parking money, in which case they may as well have paid tuition at the good school out of town where they could have thrived. And at almost every one of those "live away" campus schools you don't need a car. Trust me, very few of the undergrads in Cambridge and Palo Alto have cars. |
Anonymous
The system of higher education in the US is seriously broken. The cost of a private college has increased exponentially, particularly after the availability of student loans increased about 20 years ago. When I went to (an Ivy!) college, private colleges were costly, but accessible to the middle class. This is no longer the case. If you are middle income (less than $200K per year), you're going to pay dearly for private college, or send your child to a public college in your state because private colleges will expect you to pay close to half your net income for a single year of college. It's impossible for a middle income family to save $320K per child in 18 years solely for college (never mind retirement, emergency savings, etc.) It would be crazy for someone with a family of four and an under $200K income to pay $80K per year for college, but that's what colleges are asking. Why would they want a child with a crazy parent is beyond me. My older kids got accepted at great private colleges, but got no FA, so they went in-state. My younger kids are going next year, so trying for merit aid. We are not hopeful. The system is broken. |
Anonymous
I couldn't agree more. Excellent post, PP. My brilliant child went to a mediocre state college that we could afford. I wish I'd been able to send this child to a top college, but that was not within our means. We got some FA, and some merit aid at a few private colleges, but the in-state option (with merit aid) was by far the cheapest, even though it wasn't what my child needed. She's in grad school now at the best program in the US (if not the world) for her particular specialty. She graduated at the top of her class in college with every honor the school had to offer. But for the first couple years of grad school, she struggled to rise to the level of her peers, most of whom had attended top universities and colleges. She would not have struggled had she attended a college at her level for undergrad. There must be a better way to apportion education in the US to meet the needs of kids like mine. She's OK, but how much further along in her research would she be now had she attended a more challenging undergrad college? She's doing research that will benefit humanity. I can't do this, most people can't do this, but she can. I think kids like mine should be able to go to the very best undergraduate academic institutions regardless of their parents' income or savings. Why punish brilliant kids like mine for having average parents like me who don't make enough money to save $400K for college? |
Anonymous
George Mason is local. |
Anonymous
If she is just above qualifying for food stamps, her kids will get substantial financial aid. If you followed this thread at all, the argument is about families making well into six figures not qualifying for financial aid. |