Reply to FAFSA - is middle-class waste time applying?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "FAFSA - is middle-class waste time applying?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Oh gosh, I am so sick of people making hundreds of thousands of dollars and trying to call themselves "middle class."  We earn about $150K a year (here in the DC area as well) and I hesitate to call us middle class-- I think we're upper middle class, not quite rich yet but getting there.  At $300,000 you are absolutely not middle class anymore- you're in like the top 5% richest households in the area.

Look, I get that paying for college is not easy even at $300K, but haven't you been saving?  Even if you only saved like $10K per child per year (which shouldn't be too hard at your income-- we manage it pretty easily at half your income) that should cover most or all of the costs, depending on investment returns.  [/quote].

Oh gosh, I am so sick of people making assumptions about what others can afford. We make $350+. We’ve never had any family help. We lived on one GS-11 to gradually 14 in the DMV when our kids were little and could hardly pay the mortgage, much less save for college. One of our kids has a disability that requires expenses beyond medical that you’d never begin to understand.

We have high incomes in the last few years and our expenses are high. We still have our own student loans. College for a kid with our kids disability (if that happens) is DOUBLE private college and they will need help their entire life.

So I’m so sick of people jumping in on DCUM and saying off of one sentence about income “of course you can afford it, you made lifestyle choices or didn’t save enough.”

You just don’t know the complexities of someone else’s situation.

We will not get aid and our DC will go to a great state school with merit. We are okay with that. But don’t tell me what I can afford based on my income when I’m in my 50’s and my kid is 18.[/quote]

$300,000 is rich.

Period.

It is rich here.  It is really rich an hour drive away from here.

There is no way, no how, that a $300K income is middle class... even here.[/quote]

+1 
Like the whole thing about a kid with special needs is definitely an extra expense that I’m sure isn’t cheap. But unless we’re talking about paying for cancer treatment OOP I can’t imagine you’d be paying (even if you had a live-in aid and paid out of pocket for other therapies) more than 100k a year in expenses for the kid… which would still leave this PP with a +250k HHI. Still definitely top 10% even after that.

Like, y’all… if you’re maxing out your retirement each year, able to pay for a private k-12 (like a lot of you do) and then STILL have enough left over to at least pay for 4 years at a state flagship so your DC doesn’t have to take out loans, regardless of any merit aid? That’s not middle-class. Even saying upper middle class would be QUITE a stretch.

No, you’re not Bezos or Buffett wealthy. You can’t just up and quit your jobs and then live the same lifestyle. But don’t insult those of us who have families and own our own homes and go to public school and who bargain shop out of necessity, who make close to the median HHI (which is multiple times less yourselves) by trying to lump yourselves in with the middle class. It’s not middle-class. It’s just not. COL adjustments don’t change things [i]that much[/i][/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics