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][quote=Anonymous]I’m almost 60 and I totally agree with the OP.  The sticker price hike over the last 40 years is a shame. My parents struggled but they were able to pay for a SLAC for me without forfeiting their home or retirement funds or inheritances.

What bothers me is the expectation that my family should be one of the very very few that pays full price even though we are not wealthy-wealthy like those families around us who drive new cars and vacation all over the world and dress well and renovate their homes and have vacation homes and eat out whenever they want and etc.

We’re living on one federal salary and we will have two kids in college next year.  We’re applying but in spite of those quotes from top colleges’ websites I don’t expect any aid because (1) my in-laws left a little money to my spouse (2j we’ve been contributing to our retirement funds over the four decades we’ve worked, which makes us look rich and c) inside the beltway a normal house in a good school district is very pricy.

A lot of it has to do with being older parents in an expensive town.  If we were doing this at age 40 in flyover country we could look poor, get college aid for our kids, work 25 more years, and then really enjoy our golden years once the kids were gone.

Okay, I’m ready to get roasted.

[/quote]

Well I, for one, will give you credit for being honest and at least understanding the other side.

I'll not roast you but simply ask you how you think it should work? (and we all agree costs for privates are too high)[/quote]

I think you're underestimating the sophistication of private colleges' financial aid offices. 1, they don't consider retirement assets (though they are reported), 2, they consider your age and years of income-production afterwards, 3, they consider the cost of living of your location and tend not to consider the value of your primary residence (though this varies).

The inherited money is an unusual thing, but it would only be considered at about 8% of its value if you haven't rolled it into retirement accounts.  And considering that the median inheritance is 69k (divided up among kids so even less per person) 8% of  that really isn't a lot. And if you inherited more than that, it is a windfall.[/quote]

Not 16:09, but I agree with them.  You are mostly right about the financial aid approach (e.g. retirement isn't a consideration - but CSS schools do take home equity into account), but that doesn't speak to the comment that it is a shame that costs have risen so dramatically faster than inflation over the last 40 years.  There is NO reason for that to be the case.

PP's comment that

[i]"(w)hat bothers me is the expectation that my family should be one of the very very few that pays full price even though we are not wealthy-wealthy like those families around us who drive new cars and vacation all over the world and dress well and renovate their homes and have vacation homes and eat out whenever they want and etc."[/i]

resonates with me because we are in the same boat.  I'm 61, DH is 65, we have a lot of equity in our house.  [b]We have saved aggressively for college [/b]and lived pretty modestly to prioritize those savings.  Our HHI is upper middle class, for sure - and therefore we are expected to pay full price.  [b]Although we have saved for twenty years, we cannot pay $600,000 [/b]in post-tax dollars for our kids' undergraduate degrees - we just can't.  If we do that, we jeopardize our own security in retirement, and given the lack of any social safety net in this country, high healthcare costs, the high cost of long-term care (longevity and dementia run in both of our families), and our unwillingness to become a burden on our kids, we just cannot afford to take that risk.

Most of the people on this thread are saying that (1) no one is entitled to an education at an elite school, and/or (2) choose something you can afford.  Indeed, our kids ultimately chose schools we can afford, and they are making it work.  But to PP's point, were the economics of paying for private college the same or similar to what they were in the 70s, our savings over the years would have covered everything just fine at schools that probably would have met their needs better.

It is insane that costs have soared to such an extent that only the very wealthy and those who qualify for need-based financial aid can attend elite schools.  One can both accept and deal with this reality, and be disappointed and outraged by it. [/quote]

[b]If you have saved aggressively for 20 years, you can pay a substantial portion of $600,000.  [/b]You, or your kids, can take out loans for the rest (and a lot of people, including me, did that 30 years ago).

This notion that if you can't comfortably pay full price for an elite college, you deserve aid, and it's unfair if you don't get it, is ludicrous.  As for this:  "It is insane that costs have soared to such an extent that only the very wealthy and those who qualify for need-based financial aid can attend elite schools."  That's a false dichotomy.  It isn't true.  You can attend.  You may need ot take out loans.  That you are not willing to do that does *not* mean that your kid cannot attend.  It's your, and her, choice.   [/quote]
It’s almost like people *gasp!* reach their peak earnings around the time their kids go to college, and weren’t making that $220K income (or whatever) to “save aggressively”.[/quote]

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