Reply to The New America: Elite Privates forever out of reach for UMC?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why don’t you all complain that you can’t afford a Maserati while you’re at it?  people who have HHIs In the six figures complaining about not being able to pay for things is really eye opening. [/quote]

This is a silly thing to say. Are you 18?

The point of this thread is that college tuition raises have so greatly outstripped inflation and salary growth that it's priced out many people who otherwise could have afforded full tuition in the past. Colleges are not Maseratis. It's become a real burden for most working families, whether upper middle or lower middle class. Not being able to afford a Maserati is not a burden.[/quote]

So what?  A thing you want costs $X. You cannot afford it. If this was anything else it would be a nonevent.   How is this suddenly a problem to care about?  A burden is not being able to afford housing or health care. Or food. Missing out on an expensive private college is not.

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Are you a parent or a student? I'm mildly curious. Because children rarely understand the true cost of things or the burdens of large expenditures in real life.

At the end of the day, whether it's an expensive Ivy or a state university, college tuitions are much higher than they were in the past and the rate of tuition increases have outstripped inflation since the early 1980s. There are plenty of examples on this thread of experiences paying for colleges, whether private or public, back in the 1970s and 1980s, in a way that is not feasible. Students used to be able to pay their way through college.

That this is no longer possible for the vast majority of people, even higher income households, means it is indeed a problem to care about. Why are colleges so expensive? No one really understands why.

Even with all the talk of financial aid obscures the large middle ground demographics that used to be able to afford expensive private colleges in the past, the upper middle classes (or lower upper middle class if we want to narrow it more specifically) are now priced out - they don't get financial aid or only a token amount, and they can't really cover the full tuition without enormous financial sacrifice that is not worth it at that level. The attitude of dismissing their concerns and then whining how dare they complain they can no longer afford to pay the high college tuition is a bit of a Marie Antoinette thing to do.

Funnily enough, all the defensive posters talking about the amazing financial aids at the Ivies don't talk about it relative to their own kids. Did their kids get amazing packages? Or are they just making an assumption without firsthand experience? There are certainly those who get full or substantial financial packages but the funny thing is that package offers can and do vary widely between the Ivies for admitted students and that alone tells you something about not taking it for granted anyone with a HHI under x amount is getting a full ride, or even with a HHI of 150 or whatever they'll get the aid they need to make it work.  [/quote]

I'm a parent with two in college and two to go.  I told my kids what we could afford and what we couldn't.  Just like I told them why we live where we live, why we drive the cars that we drive and we vacation where we vacation.  I also am glad that I could send them to college, keep them housed, healthy, clothed and fed.  There are plenty of people out there who have trouble just doing that, so whether we could afford to send my kids to some SLAC or other 'elite private' schools doesn't really seem like a thing to complain about.

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