Newly donut-hole family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am glad the OP and his child seem to have made peace with their situation (which may be disappointing, but is no tragedy). I think people who have not had to settle or budget before are shocked and mad they have to with college. Keep things in perspective. Many others choose between medicine and food or shoes and rent. This can be humbling, in a good way.

The issue is that the top schools are also the gateway to generational success in a way that lower tier schools are not and iwhen you see other monkeys with grapes, it feels just as bad to have cucumbers as it feels to have nothing

Kids from UMC families do not need the Ivy “boost” as they have their parents networks too. It is a nice to have for them. Poor students have no networks and benefit from the Ivy “boost” much more. Rich kids will have privilege where ever and when ever they go - nothing to really change that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yep not F--King okay. Why should people both richer than my family and poorer than my family be able to afford it but not us in the doughnut hole. It is BS. I have twins at a local top private. One has a good shot at Ivy and the other a well known top 25. That is 150K a year by time they go. One more kid two years behind them. So for two years, I am expected to pay $225,000 a year? WTF? And we get discriminated anyway because we are Asian. Net worth is close to $2,000,000 (1.85 million). Income is $300,000. Of that net worth 1.1 Million is in retirement accounts. So I don't have the money to pay $900,000 for three private schools.

We have about $90,000 each for the older two and around $50,000 for the younger one. Another about $160,000 from selling two rental properties (doubly screwed because a lot goes to taxes--this is what the net is). We can get to around $400,000 total and can easily pay for in state in Virginia. But, why should my kids not have the right to go to the top schools? Because I am upper middle class? Those richer than us can do it and those poorer than us can do it. The whole system is out of order as Al Pacino said in Justice for All.


^^^
Touche'! This whole "system" needs to crash and burn, so hopefully, a better more equitable & meritorious one can 'rise up' to replace it. However the 'demand' for the top schools is so much greater than the 'supply' hence the change may not happen in our lifetimes.

The hole donut hole “concept” is just people who make plenty but can’t save and overspend to have a reason to complain.

It is a fact that the cost of college has outpaced inflation by a long shot.

The reason that the term "donut hole" came into existence and usage is that the rise in tuition costs has caused elite schools to become out of reach to families who are in a certain upper middle class income bracket.

You are not entitled to your own facts.

. My facts are that we are in the bottom of the “donut hole” and yet we managed to save for our children’s college education.

Those are your specific facts.

The increases in college tuitions have changed dramatically in the last few decades. It has made it much more difficult for upper middle-class families to pay for college. That is a fact.

Much more difficult, but not impossible and very doable. There are many more trinkets and baubles around too.

[Anonymous]

1) You just can't afford all colleges in the US. So look at those you can afford. That should not be so shattering.

2) The evidence does not support what is taken for gospel on this site: that going to an Ivy school changes the trajectory of your child's entire future. A dramatic return has been shown for low income kids, but not kids who start out at at higher social strata.

It will be okay. Let it go.

[Anonymous]

<< it feels just as bad to have cucumbers as it feels to have nothing >>

Then I suspect you probably lack peace in your life and your family.

There will always be people who have more than you.

Consider therapy or some other form of introspection that will help you examine your values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yep not F--King okay. Why should people both richer than my family and poorer than my family be able to afford it but not us in the doughnut hole. It is BS. I have twins at a local top private. One has a good shot at Ivy and the other a well known top 25. That is 150K a year by time they go. One more kid two years behind them. So for two years, I am expected to pay $225,000 a year? WTF? And we get discriminated anyway because we are Asian. Net worth is close to $2,000,000 (1.85 million). Income is $300,000. Of that net worth 1.1 Million is in retirement accounts. So I don't have the money to pay $900,000 for three private schools.

We have about $90,000 each for the older two and around $50,000 for the younger one. Another about $160,000 from selling two rental properties (doubly screwed because a lot goes to taxes--this is what the net is). We can get to around $400,000 total and can easily pay for in state in Virginia. But, why should my kids not have the right to go to the top schools? Because I am upper middle class? Those richer than us can do it and those poorer than us can do it. The whole system is out of order as Al Pacino said in Justice for All.


^^^
Touche'! This whole "system" needs to crash and burn, so hopefully, a better more equitable & meritorious one can 'rise up' to replace it. However the 'demand' for the top schools is so much greater than the 'supply' hence the change may not happen in our lifetimes.

The hole donut hole “concept” is just people who make plenty but can’t save and overspend to have a reason to complain.

It is a fact that the cost of college has outpaced inflation by a long shot.

The reason that the term "donut hole" came into existence and usage is that the rise in tuition costs has caused elite schools to become out of reach to families who are in a certain upper middle class income bracket.

You are not entitled to your own facts.

. My facts are that we are in the bottom of the “donut hole” and yet we managed to save for our children’s college education.

Those are your specific facts.

The increases in college tuitions have changed dramatically in the last few decades. It has made it much more difficult for upper middle-class families to pay for college. That is a fact.

Much more difficult, but not impossible and very doable. There are many more trinkets and baubles around too.

Yes. Much more difficult. And for many, yes, inaccessible and not doable. Because 10-20 years ago, we were not making donut hole incomes. Because we had daycare expenses, nanny expenses, the crash of 2008. And even if we didn't have any of that, if anything goes wrong (medical issues, job loss), or if there are circumstances that necessitate a conservative approach (a disabled spouse, an older parent close to retirement), then elite schools are inaccessible ***in ways they were not a generation ago***.

It's great that you have been able to pull this off from the bottom of the donut hole. That doesn't mean that everyone can or should be able to do that. And that inability has nothing to do with trinkets and baubles and everything to do with the objective, data-supported difficult reality of the economics of paying for college.

^^^ Fact. Not opinion. Fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yep not F--King okay. Why should people both richer than my family and poorer than my family be able to afford it but not us in the doughnut hole. It is BS. I have twins at a local top private. One has a good shot at Ivy and the other a well known top 25. That is 150K a year by time they go. One more kid two years behind them. So for two years, I am expected to pay $225,000 a year? WTF? And we get discriminated anyway because we are Asian. Net worth is close to $2,000,000 (1.85 million). Income is $300,000. Of that net worth 1.1 Million is in retirement accounts. So I don't have the money to pay $900,000 for three private schools.

We have about $90,000 each for the older two and around $50,000 for the younger one. Another about $160,000 from selling two rental properties (doubly screwed because a lot goes to taxes--this is what the net is). We can get to around $400,000 total and can easily pay for in state in Virginia. But, why should my kids not have the right to go to the top schools? Because I am upper middle class? Those richer than us can do it and those poorer than us can do it. The whole system is out of order as Al Pacino said in Justice for All.


^^^
Touche'! This whole "system" needs to crash and burn, so hopefully, a better more equitable & meritorious one can 'rise up' to replace it. However the 'demand' for the top schools is so much greater than the 'supply' hence the change may not happen in our lifetimes.

The hole donut hole “concept” is just people who make plenty but can’t save and overspend to have a reason to complain.

It is a fact that the cost of college has outpaced inflation by a long shot.

The reason that the term "donut hole" came into existence and usage is that the rise in tuition costs has caused elite schools to become out of reach to families who are in a certain upper middle class income bracket.

You are not entitled to your own facts.

. My facts are that we are in the bottom of the “donut hole” and yet we managed to save for our children’s college education.

Those are your specific facts.

The increases in college tuitions have changed dramatically in the last few decades. It has made it much more difficult for upper middle-class families to pay for college. That is a fact.

Much more difficult, but not impossible and very doable. There are many more trinkets and baubles around too.

Yes. Much more difficult. And for many, yes, inaccessible and not doable. Because 10-20 years ago, we were not making donut hole incomes. Because we had daycare expenses, nanny expenses, the crash of 2008. And even if we didn't have any of that, if anything goes wrong (medical issues, job loss), or if there are circumstances that necessitate a conservative approach (a disabled spouse, an older parent close to retirement), then elite schools are inaccessible ***in ways they were not a generation ago***.

It's great that you have been able to pull this off from the bottom of the donut hole. That doesn't mean that everyone can or should be able to do that. And that inability has nothing to do with trinkets and baubles and everything to do with the objective, data-supported difficult reality of the economics of paying for college.

^^^ Fact. Not opinion. Fact.

If you want your facts to hold, you need to stop doing this slippery thing of moving from talking about donut hole family's access to elite, private schools with their broader ability to pay for college. I think college tuition has risen too much, but nobody is owed an elite, private education no matter how high their SATs, GPA, income. There's no data-supported evidence that your well-off kids will have worse outcomes if they attend the state flagship compared to the private elite (social mobility of ivies mainly impacts low income kids--most other evidence supports that it's the kid not the school that has the greatest impact) and there's no data-supported evidence that you can't afford to pay for that. You can't always afford what you want, and sometimes institutions decide to give others things that you really want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am glad the OP and his child seem to have made peace with their situation (which may be disappointing, but is no tragedy). I think people who have not had to settle or budget before are shocked and mad they have to with college. Keep things in perspective. Many others choose between medicine and food or shoes and rent. This can be humbling, in a good way.

The issue is that the top schools are also the gateway to generational success in a way that lower tier schools are not and iwhen you see other monkeys with grapes, it feels just as bad to have cucumbers as it feels to have nothing

Kids from UMC families do not need the Ivy “boost” as they have their parents networks too. It is a nice to have for them. Poor students have no networks and benefit from the Ivy “boost” much more. Rich kids will have privilege where ever and when ever they go - nothing to really change that.

The assumption that parents with a certain income also have a network is a big one. Especially when they're 1st generation UMC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:<< it feels just as bad to have cucumbers as it feels to have nothing >>

Then I suspect you probably lack peace in your life and your family.

There will always be people who have more than you.

Consider therapy or some other form of introspection that will help you examine your values.

Or I was making a self-deprecating joke. One of those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why in the world would you expect to get financial aid when you make $260,000 a year???

Most people don't have an extra $6,000/mo that they don't already have going towards something else. Being expected to come up with that kind of money is daunting.

Most people don’t need to pay $70,000 a year for a kid to go to college either. There are plenty of less expensive options.

Most people don't pay $70,000 a year even at colleges with $70,000 price tags. Most people receive some level of financial aid.

But people with HHIs like OP's family's income do have to pay $70K/year - or look elsewhere.

That's why people call the general $150k-$300k range the donut hole. Obviously there are other colleges, but that's not the point. The point is that a certain category of college is accessible to the poor, LMC, and the rich, but not to UMC.

My parents' income dropped from $75k to $35k to temporary disability while I was in college so, in the grand scheme of things, I'll take having to stretch to pay for my DCs' college and limit them from the more expensive private colleges but it seems disingenuous to pretend the donut hole isn't a thing.

And that is OK. No one is entitled to Harvard, or an Ivy, or whatever other elite school he/she fancies. I promise you, your child will be just fine at any one of the 98% of schools that don't cost $70k.

So if not everyone is entitled to an Ivy, why do the Ivy's jack up the price of tuition to subsidize low income kids at the expense of donut hole kids. I guarantee if low income kids weren't subsidized a full ride, tuition would be much lower. I don't have a problem with schools subsidizing low income kids, I just don't like how dismissive some are to the lost opportunities for donut hole kids who've worked hard, gotten the scores and are essentially priced out of the "best" schools. I understand the reality, that doesn't mean I don't get the frustration.

Yeah, way to blame the poor kids when it's the rich kids that are the problem. Schools don't jack up prices so that they can let more poor kids in, they jack up prices because there are just so many more rich kids that are willing and able to pay. Wealth disparity is real and you've been priced out.

Colleges absolutely do jack up tuition to subsidize free rides for poor kids. Do you think all the free rides come from endowments? Yes, wealth disparity is real m, and when it comes to college tuition poor people have it way better than middle income families.

Colleges are jacking up the prices to pay for a lot of things that have nothing to do with education or tuition subsidies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1) You just can't afford all colleges in the US. So look at those you can afford. That should not be so shattering.

2) The evidence does not support what is taken for gospel on this site: that going to an Ivy school changes the trajectory of your child's entire future. A dramatic return has been shown for low income kids, but not kids who start out at at higher social strata.

It will be okay. Let it go.

This attitude is why there are many resentful middle class families that are starting to move away from the democrats. The focus is entirely on "poor" families with no regard to how middle income families are being impacted. The republicans might focus more on the wealthy, but at least they aren't hypocrites. I know people who are voting for Trump because they think his policies might benefit them while they know the Dems will do absolutely nothing to benefit them. When Trump got elected, I was sick to my stomach. Now, with all the socialist talk in the field of democrats, I see no one worth voting for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) You just can't afford all colleges in the US. So look at those you can afford. That should not be so shattering.

2) The evidence does not support what is taken for gospel on this site: that going to an Ivy school changes the trajectory of your child's entire future. A dramatic return has been shown for low income kids, but not kids who start out at at higher social strata.

It will be okay. Let it go.

This attitude is why there are many resentful middle class families that are starting to move away from the democrats. The focus is entirely on "poor" families with no regard to how middle income families are being impacted. The republicans might focus more on the wealthy, but at least they aren't hypocrites. I know people who are voting for Trump because they think his policies might benefit them while they know the Dems will do absolutely nothing to benefit them. When Trump got elected, I was sick to my stomach. Now, with all the socialist talk in the field of democrats, I see no one worth voting for.

You're entitled to believe whatever you want, but aid from private colleges isn't government financed.

Are there any candidates in the running besides Bernie that identify as socialist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) You just can't afford all colleges in the US. So look at those you can afford. That should not be so shattering.

2) The evidence does not support what is taken for gospel on this site: that going to an Ivy school changes the trajectory of your child's entire future. A dramatic return has been shown for low income kids, but not kids who start out at at higher social strata.

It will be okay. Let it go.

This attitude is why there are many resentful middle class families that are starting to move away from the democrats. The focus is entirely on "poor" families with no regard to how middle income families are being impacted. The republicans might focus more on the wealthy, but at least they aren't hypocrites. I know people who are voting for Trump because they think his policies might benefit them while they know the Dems will do absolutely nothing to benefit them. When Trump got elected, I was sick to my stomach. Now, with all the socialist talk in the field of democrats, I see no one worth voting for.

Which of Trump's policies help the middle class???? I can't help it if your friends are so susceptible to class war prodding that they can't see straight, but all of the Dems proposals squarely help the middle class to varying degrees and few of Trumps do (and who do you think is going to pay for the ballooning deficit from that tax cut?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) You just can't afford all colleges in the US. So look at those you can afford. That should not be so shattering.

2) The evidence does not support what is taken for gospel on this site: that going to an Ivy school changes the trajectory of your child's entire future. A dramatic return has been shown for low income kids, but not kids who start out at at higher social strata.

It will be okay. Let it go.

This attitude is why there are many resentful middle class families that are starting to move away from the democrats. The focus is entirely on "poor" families with no regard to how middle income families are being impacted. The republicans might focus more on the wealthy, but at least they aren't hypocrites. I know people who are voting for Trump because they think his policies might benefit them while they know the Dems will do absolutely nothing to benefit them. When Trump got elected, I was sick to my stomach. Now, with all the socialist talk in the field of democrats, I see no one worth voting for.

Which of Trump's policies help the middle class???? I can't help it if your friends are so susceptible to class war prodding that they can't see straight, but all of the Dems proposals squarely help the middle class to varying degrees and few of Trumps do (and who do you think is going to pay for the ballooning deficit from that tax cut?)

When people keep getting told that their concerns are insignificant so suck it up, they tend not to see straight. You can't dismiss people's real concerns about being shut out of areas of the American dream that were attainable before without having significant backlash.

[Anonymous]

So you would vote for the likes of Trump; his ethics, his totalitarian tendencies, because you believe you stand to gain financially. How is that not selling your vote?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yep not F--King okay. Why should people both richer than my family and poorer than my family be able to afford it but not us in the doughnut hole. It is BS. I have twins at a local top private. One has a good shot at Ivy and the other a well known top 25. That is 150K a year by time they go. One more kid two years behind them. So for two years, I am expected to pay $225,000 a year? WTF? And we get discriminated anyway because we are Asian. Net worth is close to $2,000,000 (1.85 million). Income is $300,000. Of that net worth 1.1 Million is in retirement accounts. So I don't have the money to pay $900,000 for three private schools.

We have about $90,000 each for the older two and around $50,000 for the younger one. Another about $160,000 from selling two rental properties (doubly screwed because a lot goes to taxes--this is what the net is). We can get to around $400,000 total and can easily pay for in state in Virginia. But, why should my kids not have the right to go to the top schools? Because I am upper middle class? Those richer than us can do it and those poorer than us can do it. The whole system is out of order as Al Pacino said in Justice for All.


^^^
Touche'! This whole "system" needs to crash and burn, so hopefully, a better more equitable & meritorious one can 'rise up' to replace it. However the 'demand' for the top schools is so much greater than the 'supply' hence the change may not happen in our lifetimes.

The hole donut hole “concept” is just people who make plenty but can’t save and overspend to have a reason to complain.

It is a fact that the cost of college has outpaced inflation by a long shot.

The reason that the term "donut hole" came into existence and usage is that the rise in tuition costs has caused elite schools to become out of reach to families who are in a certain upper middle class income bracket.

You are not entitled to your own facts.

. My facts are that we are in the bottom of the “donut hole” and yet we managed to save for our children’s college education.

Those are your specific facts.

The increases in college tuitions have changed dramatically in the last few decades. It has made it much more difficult for upper middle-class families to pay for college. That is a fact.

Much more difficult, but not impossible and very doable. There are many more trinkets and baubles around too.

Yes. Much more difficult. And for many, yes, inaccessible and not doable. Because 10-20 years ago, we were not making donut hole incomes. Because we had daycare expenses, nanny expenses, the crash of 2008. And even if we didn't have any of that, if anything goes wrong (medical issues, job loss), or if there are circumstances that necessitate a conservative approach (a disabled spouse, an older parent close to retirement), then elite schools are inaccessible ***in ways they were not a generation ago***.

It's great that you have been able to pull this off from the bottom of the donut hole. That doesn't mean that everyone can or should be able to do that. And that inability has nothing to do with trinkets and baubles and everything to do with the objective, data-supported difficult reality of the economics of paying for college.

^^^ Fact. Not opinion. Fact.

If you want your facts to hold, you need to stop doing this slippery thing of moving from talking about donut hole family's access to elite, private schools with their broader ability to pay for college. I think college tuition has risen too much, but nobody is owed an elite, private education no matter how high their SATs, GPA, income. There's no data-supported evidence that your well-off kids will have worse outcomes if they attend the state flagship compared to the private elite (social mobility of ivies mainly impacts low income kids--most other evidence supports that it's the kid not the school that has the greatest impact) and there's no data-supported evidence that you can't afford to pay for that. You can't always afford what you want, and sometimes institutions decide to give others things that you really want.

The above post relates to college generally. Any college that a kid is qualified to be admitted to.

Your comments about the impact of elite schools on a person’s life, while accurate, do not speak to the dramatically changed economics of paying for college.