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][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.

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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.
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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.  
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[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]

If $8K is over $28K in today's dollars, why does the same school cost $75K today?

How is that justifiable?[/quote]

The school doesn’t. Make your kids share a 2BR with 3 other students as my parents did. While attending state flagship and working full time to pay for it.

No upper middle class kid is actually sacrificing to make it work. If they did those things, along with your $28k contribution, they could afford HYP. [/quote]

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