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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DC is a good student but will not even be applying to schools that cost $65,000 and do not give merit aid. That is just reality. Plenty of high stat students in the same boat as your kid.[/quote]

Lots of those $65k schools give a lot of aid. Don't assume you'd have to pay full freight. [/quote]

If your HHI is &gt; $120k, you are unlikely to qualify for need based aid and yes, would have to pay full freight.  Maybe with loans, but full freight.[/quote]

This isn't correct. If your HHI is &gt;$200k, you are unlikely to qualify for need-based aid. Families making $120k usually do at top colleges that are generous with need-based aid.[/quote]

Harvard's net price calculator can give an idea of your family's best case scenario. Harvard is most well-endowed of any college in the country, is probably the most generous with financial aid, and doesn't include loans in its financial aid packages.

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator

A family of 4, with one in college and a HHI of $120k, with cash and investments of $50k (retirement savings and equity in the primary home don't count) would get an estimated scholarship of $54,250 at Harvard. Cost to family would be [b]$13,000[/b].

Note how little the parents' cash and investments matter at this income level. The estimated scholarship stays the same ($13k) until parents' cash and investments rise to more than $200k.

[b]A family of 4, with one in college and a HHI of $200k, with cash and investments of $50k (again, retirement and home equity don't count) would get an estimated scholarship of $23,650 at Harvard[/b]. Cost to family would be [b]$43,600[/b]. But at this income level, more of cash and investments are counted (although still just a small fraction of it). If this family has $200k in cash and investments, the cost to the family would be [b]$51,100[/b].

All else equal, as you increase HHI from $120k to $150k, for every $10k increase in HHI, the cost to the family for a year at Harvard goes up $2k. From $150k to $200k, for every $10k increase in HHI, the cost to the family goes up $5k.

Again, this is best case scenario. Less generous colleges may determine the cost to the family is the same as at Harvard, but will give smaller scholarships (or even none at all) and expect the family to make up the difference with loans. Sometimes lots and lots of loans.[/quote]

This is pretty much the case for all the Ivies now. A student from a family earning $200k may likely be eligible for nearly $100k over four years in scholarship/financial aid at Harvard. Few if any of the schools that offer merit aid offer as much. Almost no one sensibly chooses Bama or Ole Miss or GWU over an Ivy because of financial reasons unless they come from a family earning over $200k that never prepared.[/quote]

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