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

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But my point is that they are not inaccessible. They are just not “comfortably “accessible.  [b]Households making $200,000 could afford it if they were willing to live like as if they were making $125,000[/b]. The OP’s premise seems to be that middle-class people should be able to afford it without any impact on their lifestyle.

[/quote]

The $75K spread doesn't take the tax on the $200,000 income into account.  Those people would have to live more like they were making less than $100K, taking taxes into account.

Moreover, that income doesn't go as far in e.g. DC as it does in Tulsa - and presumably the people earning it have not been earning it for 18 years.  Whatever they were earning in the first 5-8 years was eaten up by daycare.

The costs of housing and healthcare have also risen dramatically in the last 40 years, making it all the harder for people to save.

Private and Parent Plus loans were not a thing before tuition soared out of control.
[/quote]
I agree with you that it is very difficult for families in that “UMC donut hole”, particularly those in high COL areas, to pay for the elite schools. I’m still not seeing how it’s a problem. [/quote]

It's a problem because it makes certain kinds of education inaccessible in ways that it was not in previous generations.  And it means that the schools themselves have student bodies made up of students from very wealthy families and from families who qualify for need-based aid, which leaves out a sizable portion of the U.S. demographics.

It also means that super high achievers whose families cannot pay won't have the opportunity to participate in the amazing things happening at these schools.  
[/quote]

[b]This. Is. Not. New. [/b]

Middle class kids have never been able to afford HYP. I had a community college prof who graduated HS in the 1990s and applied to Harvard on a lark. He got in but didn’t go. He was the only person I knew in my community who had even applied. No one from my high school conference of 8-9 high schools has sent any kid to an Ivy in the past 20 years. Maybe ever, but I can definitively say not in the past 20. Lots of impressive high achiever kids enrolling at Iowa State and U of Iowa.

The only difference between my experience graduating in the mid aughts and kids today is, if these kids did apply (they don’t) and they got in (probably wouldn’t, our high schools have no APs and no prestigious interesting extracurriculars) they would qualify for financial aid. But that’s actually *better* access than previous generations.

This is absolutely a story about entitlement. Rich, but not very rich, people who think they should be allowed to send their kids to top schools but fall short. [/quote]

It is new.  You graduated in the mid aughts, not in 1983 (as I did).  So it's not new to you, but it is new to those of us who went to college many decades ago.

I'm the PP whose expensive school cost $8,000 in 1979, and $75,000 today.  My parents put SIX kids through private colleges in that era, without any student debt.  That would be impossible today for everyone but the top 1%.  In the 70s and 80s, middle class kids who qualified to attend HYP, could and did attend.  When I was in high school, the mantra went, "if you can get in, there are ways to pay for it."

That is no longer true.

It. is. new.[/quote]

You’re really delusional. [b]$8k in 1979 is over $28k in today’s dollars. [/b]You come from serious privilege and apparently don’t realize it. [/quote]

Yes, that's right.  Each of my parents' kids contributed at least a few, and often several thousand to tuition, room and board costs each year.  In that era, summer and work-study earnings made a dent in the overall costs.  I recall making about $3K over the course of a summer (May - August) by working two jobs, and handing over all but a few hundred to my parents towards expenses.  A college student could contribute a good chunk of minimum-wage earnings towards her education in that era.

My brother took a year off from college to think about what he wanted to do, and worked full-time as a carpenter that year (this was in the mid-70s).  He lived with my parents and banked his earnings - and when he returned (to HYP) the following year, he paid for most of the expenses from that money.

None of that is possible now because of how costs have skyrocketed.

There are other factors that made it feasible for my middle-class parents, including lower housing costs and lower healthcare costs.  Those costs take a much bigger bite out of a family's HHI now than they did in the 70s.

[/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