When the reality of college cost hits. Cannot do dream school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My niece got into her dream school, an Ivy. Cannot make the numbers work, two-teacher family making just over 200k, expected to contribute 75k per year (roughly 20k per year in aid), have two other kids (twins three years younger), sizable medical expenses. They simply bought a home at a good time and have a lot of equity, ruining financial aid calculations, and they aren't selling their house to pay for college. My sister is heartbroken and feels like she failed her kid. This is not a good feeling.

That's how we felt when we couldn't swing our kid's $90k+ dream school. Private schooling is are how capitalism drains upper middle class back to middle class and keeping from entering rich class. Funny thing is that people with same income can get aid if they didn't live frugally and saved but lived a high life, saved little or nothing or hid it somewhere. Rich people don't care about college costs, poor get aid.

NP, here, but this is exactly my situation - except my income is less than $100K, and the school is not an Ivy, but a well-regarded SLAC. I've submitted an appeal, but I'm not optimistic. We literally do without so much. DC is taking it in stride, though, and told me I should not feel bad about saving money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

I’m actually with this person. All of the Ivies either exclude home equity or cap it at a low multiple of income when considering how much the parents have in assets. Most (all?) also take into account medical expenses not covered by insurance.

I ran the Columbia (who I think uses the highest multiple of income for home equity) NPC calculator quickly with the limited info OP provided and some generous assumptions and it only had a family contribution of $19k, with Columbia picking up $78k. There are some major assets missing from this story.

I ran it again with even more generous (and probably unrealistic) assumptions and it spit out a family contribution of $29k with Columbia covering $68k. Something is missing here.

Did op kid get into ivy or columbia? Why are you mentioning Columbia?

Because, as stated before, Columbia is the harshest Ivy with regard to home equity. So if home equity is truly the problem, Columbia should spit out the least favorable number. Everywhere else would be better for a high home equity case. And yet the expected contribution from Columbia is still quite low.

Hence, there are missing assets from this story.

harshest how? yale doesn't exclude any real estate, even primary.

Yale is more opaque about how they calculate EFC. In any event, I ran the Yale NPC with $1.2 million in home equity and a handful of other assets and it still spit out a family contribution of $31k, with Yale covering $60k. Still something missing.

on what income? I asked Yale about this and it's 1x income. also what did you put in as a "handful" of other assets. like what about the 529s for 3 kids.

See, I believe Columbia is 2x income which I why I used that originally.

Assumptions for Yale were $200k income, $5k in interest/dividend income, $70k in checking/savings, $50k in investments, $50k additional in sibling assets, $5k in income and assets each for the student. $1.2 million in home equity as previously indicated. Seem like fairly generous assumptions.

Did the same for Cornell and it spit out $42k in contribution with the school covering $51k. Getting closer but still not that close.

this doesnt seem generous at all. my kids each 75-90k in 529s. we've been saving for 15 years. and we can't put money in Roths on our salary so we're limited by the 8k in tradition IRAs. we have about 200k in investments.

And are you a teacher with a teacher spouse with three kids making $200k now and less before? No, no you are not. What you have is irrelevant to this discussion and your retirement assets are irrelevant too (the above are non-retirement assets).

No dual teacher, three kid household just now hitting $200k has $75-90k per kid in 529s and an additional $200k of non-retirement assets on top of seven figure home equity. But there are other assets in OP’s scenario not being accounted for.

Meh, that’s not necessarily true, especially if grandparents were making 529 contributions. Given that average S&P returns over the last 18 years were over 13%, $250 a month from birth would result in 188k. Lots of dual teacher households are investing more than that.

Bolded would be an example of something not in OP’s original post that isn’t being accounted for.

$250 a month is assuming they aren’t saving for other things, and the family in OP’s scenario has three kids. Not likely they were saving that much that long ago in addition to retirement contributions, emergency funds, etc.

No, that in no way assumes the family is saving nothing else. They likely save far more than just $250 a month. I’m saying $250 a month for the lifetime of their children is affordable on their salaries (including the fact that their salaries were likely lower before). Across three kids, it would result in over 60k per kid. Family absolutely could’ve saved more. $250/mo is modest for college savings, even for teachers.

[Anonymous]

If you can't afford college, just do what my brother-in-law does.

He is far too cool to actually care about having a job that would support his kids or his equally flaky third generation rich wife, so they just get whatever they want from my MIL or her parents.

[Anonymous]

Totally understand. This is absolutely true because I see several very similar cases. OPP, at least this an IVY. I saw families struggling for a top 20 or 30.
I would suggest you consider the major. If the kid is in a major that easy to get money back, it's OK to have some loan. Or else, have to choose what is affordable.

But, no she didn't fail her kid. This system failed those wonderful kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My niece got into her dream school, an Ivy. Cannot make the numbers work, two-teacher family making just over 200k, expected to contribute 75k per year (roughly 20k per year in aid), have two other kids (twins three years younger), sizable medical expenses. They simply bought a home at a good time and have a lot of equity, ruining financial aid calculations, and they aren't selling their house to pay for college. My sister is heartbroken and feels like she failed her kid. This is not a good feeling.

Good for them for respecting their budget. Studies show very little, if any, correlation between college rankings and outcomes after controlling for incoming test scores. They will save themselves a lot of money and sacrifice nothing in return.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My niece got into her dream school, an Ivy. Cannot make the numbers work, two-teacher family making just over 200k, expected to contribute 75k per year (roughly 20k per year in aid), have two other kids (twins three years younger), sizable medical expenses. They simply bought a home at a good time and have a lot of equity, ruining financial aid calculations, and they aren't selling their house to pay for college. My sister is heartbroken and feels like she failed her kid. This is not a good feeling.

Good for them for respecting their budget. Studies show very little, if any, correlation between college rankings and outcomes after controlling for incoming test scores. They will save themselves a lot of money and sacrifice nothing in return.

College ranking obsession and insanity is all because of perceived prestige.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

I’m actually with this person. All of the Ivies either exclude home equity or cap it at a low multiple of income when considering how much the parents have in assets. Most (all?) also take into account medical expenses not covered by insurance.

I ran the Columbia (who I think uses the highest multiple of income for home equity) NPC calculator quickly with the limited info OP provided and some generous assumptions and it only had a family contribution of $19k, with Columbia picking up $78k. There are some major assets missing from this story.

I ran it again with even more generous (and probably unrealistic) assumptions and it spit out a family contribution of $29k with Columbia covering $68k. Something is missing here.

Did op kid get into ivy or columbia? Why are you mentioning Columbia?

Because, as stated before, Columbia is the harshest Ivy with regard to home equity. So if home equity is truly the problem, Columbia should spit out the least favorable number. Everywhere else would be better for a high home equity case. And yet the expected contribution from Columbia is still quite low.

Hence, there are missing assets from this story.

harshest how? yale doesn't exclude any real estate, even primary.

Yale is more opaque about how they calculate EFC. In any event, I ran the Yale NPC with $1.2 million in home equity and a handful of other assets and it still spit out a family contribution of $31k, with Yale covering $60k. Still something missing.

on what income? I asked Yale about this and it's 1x income. also what did you put in as a "handful" of other assets. like what about the 529s for 3 kids.

See, I believe Columbia is 2x income which I why I used that originally.

Assumptions for Yale were $200k income, $5k in interest/dividend income, $70k in checking/savings, $50k in investments, $50k additional in sibling assets, $5k in income and assets each for the student. $1.2 million in home equity as previously indicated. Seem like fairly generous assumptions.

Did the same for Cornell and it spit out $42k in contribution with the school covering $51k. Getting closer but still not that close.

this doesnt seem generous at all. my kids each 75-90k in 529s. we've been saving for 15 years. and we can't put money in Roths on our salary so we're limited by the 8k in tradition IRAs. we have about 200k in investments.

And are you a teacher with a teacher spouse with three kids making $200k now and less before? No, no you are not. What you have is irrelevant to this discussion and your retirement assets are irrelevant too (the above are non-retirement assets).

No dual teacher, three kid household just now hitting $200k has $75-90k per kid in 529s and an additional $200k of non-retirement assets on top of seven figure home equity. But there are other assets in OP’s scenario not being accounted for.

Meh, that’s not necessarily true, especially if grandparents were making 529 contributions. Given that average S&P returns over the last 18 years were over 13%, $250 a month from birth would result in 188k. Lots of dual teacher households are investing more than that.

Bolded would be an example of something not in OP’s original post that isn’t being accounted for.

$250 a month is assuming they aren’t saving for other things, and the family in OP’s scenario has three kids. Not likely they were saving that much that long ago in addition to retirement contributions, emergency funds, etc.

No, that in no way assumes the family is saving nothing else. They likely save far more than just $250 a month. I’m saying $250 a month for the lifetime of their children is affordable on their salaries (including the fact that their salaries were likely lower before). Across three kids, it would result in over 60k per kid. Family absolutely could’ve saved more. $250/mo is modest for college savings, even for teachers.

And the NPCs I ran assumed amounts like this. You’re just arguing with yourself at this point, or simply because you like hearing yourself argue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My niece got into her dream school, an Ivy. Cannot make the numbers work, two-teacher family making just over 200k, expected to contribute 75k per year (roughly 20k per year in aid), have two other kids (twins three years younger), sizable medical expenses. They simply bought a home at a good time and have a lot of equity, ruining financial aid calculations, and they aren't selling their house to pay for college. My sister is heartbroken and feels like she failed her kid. This is not a good feeling.

These posts come out like clockwork this time every year. How is this a surprise? They presumably knew about their other kids and the med expenses and the home equity.

A lot of times the surprise is that the net price calculators are very wrong.

Yeah, happened to me.

T50 School 1: NPC was off by over $30k, not in our favor.

T50 School 2: Off by nearly $20k.

In general I found that the ‘give a lot of merit’ schools came in a little better than expectations and the ‘big name’ schools came in much worse.

Since we pre-screened every school through the NPC before applying, I wonder how many schools would have actually been affordable in the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

I’m actually with this person. All of the Ivies either exclude home equity or cap it at a low multiple of income when considering how much the parents have in assets. Most (all?) also take into account medical expenses not covered by insurance.

I ran the Columbia (who I think uses the highest multiple of income for home equity) NPC calculator quickly with the limited info OP provided and some generous assumptions and it only had a family contribution of $19k, with Columbia picking up $78k. There are some major assets missing from this story.

I ran it again with even more generous (and probably unrealistic) assumptions and it spit out a family contribution of $29k with Columbia covering $68k. Something is missing here.

Did op kid get into ivy or columbia? Why are you mentioning Columbia?

Because, as stated before, Columbia is the harshest Ivy with regard to home equity. So if home equity is truly the problem, Columbia should spit out the least favorable number. Everywhere else would be better for a high home equity case. And yet the expected contribution from Columbia is still quite low.

Hence, there are missing assets from this story.

harshest how? yale doesn't exclude any real estate, even primary.

Yale is more opaque about how they calculate EFC. In any event, I ran the Yale NPC with $1.2 million in home equity and a handful of other assets and it still spit out a family contribution of $31k, with Yale covering $60k. Still something missing.

on what income? I asked Yale about this and it's 1x income. also what did you put in as a "handful" of other assets. like what about the 529s for 3 kids.

See, I believe Columbia is 2x income which I why I used that originally.

Assumptions for Yale were $200k income, $5k in interest/dividend income, $70k in checking/savings, $50k in investments, $50k additional in sibling assets, $5k in income and assets each for the student. $1.2 million in home equity as previously indicated. Seem like fairly generous assumptions.

Did the same for Cornell and it spit out $42k in contribution with the school covering $51k. Getting closer but still not that close.

this doesnt seem generous at all. my kids each 75-90k in 529s. we've been saving for 15 years. and we can't put money in Roths on our salary so we're limited by the 8k in tradition IRAs. we have about 200k in investments.

And are you a teacher with a teacher spouse with three kids making $200k now and less before? No, no you are not. What you have is irrelevant to this discussion and your retirement assets are irrelevant too (the above are non-retirement assets).

No dual teacher, three kid household just now hitting $200k has $75-90k per kid in 529s and an additional $200k of non-retirement assets on top of seven figure home equity. But there are other assets in OP’s scenario not being accounted for.

Meh, that’s not necessarily true, especially if grandparents were making 529 contributions. Given that average S&P returns over the last 18 years were over 13%, $250 a month from birth would result in 188k. Lots of dual teacher households are investing more than that.

Bolded would be an example of something not in OP’s original post that isn’t being accounted for.

$250 a month is assuming they aren’t saving for other things, and the family in OP’s scenario has three kids. Not likely they were saving that much that long ago in addition to retirement contributions, emergency funds, etc.

No, that in no way assumes the family is saving nothing else. They likely save far more than just $250 a month. I’m saying $250 a month for the lifetime of their children is affordable on their salaries (including the fact that their salaries were likely lower before). Across three kids, it would result in over 60k per kid. Family absolutely could’ve saved more. $250/mo is modest for college savings, even for teachers.

And the NPCs I ran assumed amounts like this. You’re just arguing with yourself at this point, or simply because you like hearing yourself argue.

Assumed what? You said saving $250/mo requires a family taking home more than 11k/mo to have no other savings. That's ridiculous. The savings are a big reason why the family has a relatively high EFC. Based on the info the family provided, having 180k in total college savings for three kids will result in financial aid being reduced by 10k/yr compared to no college savings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

I’m actually with this person. All of the Ivies either exclude home equity or cap it at a low multiple of income when considering how much the parents have in assets. Most (all?) also take into account medical expenses not covered by insurance.

I ran the Columbia (who I think uses the highest multiple of income for home equity) NPC calculator quickly with the limited info OP provided and some generous assumptions and it only had a family contribution of $19k, with Columbia picking up $78k. There are some major assets missing from this story.

I ran it again with even more generous (and probably unrealistic) assumptions and it spit out a family contribution of $29k with Columbia covering $68k. Something is missing here.

Did op kid get into ivy or columbia? Why are you mentioning Columbia?

Because, as stated before, Columbia is the harshest Ivy with regard to home equity. So if home equity is truly the problem, Columbia should spit out the least favorable number. Everywhere else would be better for a high home equity case. And yet the expected contribution from Columbia is still quite low.

Hence, there are missing assets from this story.

harshest how? yale doesn't exclude any real estate, even primary.

Yale is more opaque about how they calculate EFC. In any event, I ran the Yale NPC with $1.2 million in home equity and a handful of other assets and it still spit out a family contribution of $31k, with Yale covering $60k. Still something missing.

on what income? I asked Yale about this and it's 1x income. also what did you put in as a "handful" of other assets. like what about the 529s for 3 kids.

See, I believe Columbia is 2x income which I why I used that originally.

Assumptions for Yale were $200k income, $5k in interest/dividend income, $70k in checking/savings, $50k in investments, $50k additional in sibling assets, $5k in income and assets each for the student. $1.2 million in home equity as previously indicated. Seem like fairly generous assumptions.

Did the same for Cornell and it spit out $42k in contribution with the school covering $51k. Getting closer but still not that close.

this doesnt seem generous at all. my kids each 75-90k in 529s. we've been saving for 15 years. and we can't put money in Roths on our salary so we're limited by the 8k in tradition IRAs. we have about 200k in investments.

And are you a teacher with a teacher spouse with three kids making $200k now and less before? No, no you are not. What you have is irrelevant to this discussion and your retirement assets are irrelevant too (the above are non-retirement assets).

No dual teacher, three kid household just now hitting $200k has $75-90k per kid in 529s and an additional $200k of non-retirement assets on top of seven figure home equity. But there are other assets in OP’s scenario not being accounted for.

Meh, that’s not necessarily true, especially if grandparents were making 529 contributions. Given that average S&P returns over the last 18 years were over 13%, $250 a month from birth would result in 188k. Lots of dual teacher households are investing more than that.

Bolded would be an example of something not in OP’s original post that isn’t being accounted for.

$250 a month is assuming they aren’t saving for other things, and the family in OP’s scenario has three kids. Not likely they were saving that much that long ago in addition to retirement contributions, emergency funds, etc.

No, that in no way assumes the family is saving nothing else. They likely save far more than just $250 a month. I’m saying $250 a month for the lifetime of their children is affordable on their salaries (including the fact that their salaries were likely lower before). Across three kids, it would result in over 60k per kid. Family absolutely could’ve saved more. $250/mo is modest for college savings, even for teachers.

Some fairly aggressive assumptions to get to $60k per kid but your point still stands. A non-trivial amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

I’m actually with this person. All of the Ivies either exclude home equity or cap it at a low multiple of income when considering how much the parents have in assets. Most (all?) also take into account medical expenses not covered by insurance.

I ran the Columbia (who I think uses the highest multiple of income for home equity) NPC calculator quickly with the limited info OP provided and some generous assumptions and it only had a family contribution of $19k, with Columbia picking up $78k. There are some major assets missing from this story.

I ran it again with even more generous (and probably unrealistic) assumptions and it spit out a family contribution of $29k with Columbia covering $68k. Something is missing here.

Did op kid get into ivy or columbia? Why are you mentioning Columbia?

Because, as stated before, Columbia is the harshest Ivy with regard to home equity. So if home equity is truly the problem, Columbia should spit out the least favorable number. Everywhere else would be better for a high home equity case. And yet the expected contribution from Columbia is still quite low.

Hence, there are missing assets from this story.

harshest how? yale doesn't exclude any real estate, even primary.

Yale is more opaque about how they calculate EFC. In any event, I ran the Yale NPC with $1.2 million in home equity and a handful of other assets and it still spit out a family contribution of $31k, with Yale covering $60k. Still something missing.

on what income? I asked Yale about this and it's 1x income. also what did you put in as a "handful" of other assets. like what about the 529s for 3 kids.

See, I believe Columbia is 2x income which I why I used that originally.

Assumptions for Yale were $200k income, $5k in interest/dividend income, $70k in checking/savings, $50k in investments, $50k additional in sibling assets, $5k in income and assets each for the student. $1.2 million in home equity as previously indicated. Seem like fairly generous assumptions.

Did the same for Cornell and it spit out $42k in contribution with the school covering $51k. Getting closer but still not that close.

this doesnt seem generous at all. my kids each 75-90k in 529s. we've been saving for 15 years. and we can't put money in Roths on our salary so we're limited by the 8k in tradition IRAs. we have about 200k in investments.

And are you a teacher with a teacher spouse with three kids making $200k now and less before? No, no you are not. What you have is irrelevant to this discussion and your retirement assets are irrelevant too (the above are non-retirement assets).

No dual teacher, three kid household just now hitting $200k has $75-90k per kid in 529s and an additional $200k of non-retirement assets on top of seven figure home equity. But there are other assets in OP’s scenario not being accounted for.

Meh, that’s not necessarily true, especially if grandparents were making 529 contributions. Given that average S&P returns over the last 18 years were over 13%, $250 a month from birth would result in 188k. Lots of dual teacher households are investing more than that.

Bolded would be an example of something not in OP’s original post that isn’t being accounted for.

$250 a month is assuming they aren’t saving for other things, and the family in OP’s scenario has three kids. Not likely they were saving that much that long ago in addition to retirement contributions, emergency funds, etc.

No, that in no way assumes the family is saving nothing else. They likely save far more than just $250 a month. I’m saying $250 a month for the lifetime of their children is affordable on their salaries (including the fact that their salaries were likely lower before). Across three kids, it would result in over 60k per kid. Family absolutely could’ve saved more. $250/mo is modest for college savings, even for teachers.

Some fairly aggressive assumptions to get to $60k per kid but your point still stands. A non-trivial amount.

The only assumption is the historical return over the last 18 years, which is a historical fact, not an assumption.

[Anonymous]

Lots and lots of kids cannot go to their dream school. Both my kids got into their dream schools and could not go. We'd told them ahead of time our budget, and what they'd need in scholarship money to go. When all the results came in, both their dream schools were out of range. So we then looked at the choices that were in range and they picked their favorite from those. It wasn't the end of the world. It was about 3 days of sadness. A few years later, one kid graduates in May, another next May. Neither will have any debt, and given the economy and lack of jobs, they are both very glad they didn't go into debt to go to their first choice. It was also a good lesson in "we don't always get what we want". There'll be a lot of those in life so it's good to build resilience and not depend too much on circumstances.

[Anonymous]

So she will go somewhere else and be fine.

[Anonymous]

How much are you contributing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

I believe it. I turned down a top-5 for in-state because the aid offered (back then) was not enough. That college probably has more money for aid now, but their charges also have gone up geometrically since the.

It might be worth a FA appeal, noting the "serious medical expenses" and overall family situation financially.