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]This is people who live under the delusion that they got where they are, attending elite schools, through meritocracy, rather than privilege, getting slapped in the face with reality.

MOST KIDS for the past 50 years who were "worthy" of T20 schools could not go. They didn't even apply.

Posters here clearly did apply and go. They had savvy parents who encouraged them to apply, could afford the tuition, and made it work.

Now they think, hey my kid is "worthy" but something is in my way. It must be (1) new and different (2) unfair.

No, it's how it's always been. [/quote]

You are resorting to a false equivalency. I can see where your thinking is coming from and it's a corrupted way of thinking. You're not arguing for things to be made more equitable, you're defending the shifting of one perceived privilege to a different perceived privilege. You're effectively justifying today's inequity because things were inequitable in the past. And it's likely because you have a material interest in the current system and resent implications there's something wrong with it. The rich can still easily afford college, the poor get financial aid if they game the system, the middle classes get it harder and harder and people like you only scream and rant "privilege" in their faces while the real privilege, ie the rich, are utterly unaffected.

[/quote]

1) That's not what false equivalency means, I'm explaining history and attitudes. 
2) Things are more equitable than ever in the sense that people are asked to pay what they can afford, as determined by a formula, including rich people paying proportionally more, which they should be able to. 
3) I personally would be better off with the "old" way since I am full pay. 
4) "People like me" are the "real" rich people who are unaffected either way but that doesn't make your belly-aching any more justified. Why should I subsidize someone making over $200k? Let's both pay sticker and subsidize people who can't afford it by making some lifestyle cutbacks. [/quote]

Yes, it's a false equivalency. You're also defending the system because it's clear you want to justify spending so much money on what is increasingly, as time goes on, a less valuable product, the fancy college degree. Your child would likely be much better off if you simply dumped most of the money into a investment account and told them not to touch it until they were 65, and sent them to the state university instead. You also want to justify effectively being robbed to help a few more poor kids go to fancy colleges.

Some research not long ago, maybe last year as it as shared on here, shows the demographics of the top colleges are increasingly becoming binary, poor on full near full packages and rich on full freight.

I can also look at the rest of your argument. You're demanding to know why you should subsidize someone making over $200k. Ok, let me ask you, why is it $200k? Why shouldn't it stop at $100k? It's an arbitrary figure to use and because it's arbitrary it's trapped a lot of people in that bracket (say the $150-$300k) who are the ones who struggle to afford the private colleges, either not getting enough aid or no aid at all. That's a major chunk of the upper middle classes who used to dominate these private colleges.

Then, of course, as someone pointed out earlier, the calculators used for financial aid don't take into account long term income trends. You may have just been making $200k for a few years and don't have anywhere near the money to pay full tuition as most people can't pay $80k out of a $200k income once taxes are paid and day to day living need to be covered.

And since you demanded people should pay what they can afford, here's the other newsflash for you: even the full freight kids are, according to all the top colleges, subsidizes and don't pay the true "accurate" cost of educating the kids as the endowment covers the rest. So sneering at people for not paying what "they can afford" while you're being subsidized by the generous alumni donations of people who attended when the colleges were much cheaper is the epitome of hypocrisy. [/quote]

NP:  So now the elite college degree is of diminishing value? People who can afford it should just go to state universities?

But I thought that the whole issue was that it is crushingly unfair that those unfortunate souls who only make $200,000/year and have only $400,000 saved for college for 2 kids (to reference a PP) didn't receive aid to attend an elite university?

So which is it?  It's so important that we need to provide aid so that everyone who wants to attend can go (without taking out any loans, of course), or it's of diminished, and diminishing, value?[/quote]

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