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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
We're European immigrants who went to tuition-free universities in our home country (still need to find room and board and pay for books - a lot of undergrads live at home if they can commute).

And yet here, we are prepared to pay for any college for our kids, as long as they have a good reason to go. One of our kids wants to go to Georgetown SFS, and it's probably 85K a year.

But we don't complain. It's a choice we made.[/quote]

It's a choice for everyone, just like most things in life.  I don't get to choose the fancy luxury apartment/condo with water views or the luxury home in the nicest school district if I cannot afford it.  I don't get to choose a 100K car if I can only afford a $25K car---I buy the car I can afford and go about life.  If I really really want the fancier car or fancier home, I make a plan to save for it---for majority of people, they will never be able to afford a $100K car (or at least should not be buying one with their financial situation).   
If you are a donut hole family, you still have a fairly privileged life.  Your kids go to decent/good schools, they don't worry about safety while walking around their neighborhood or where dinner is going to come from tonight. 
Yes, it sucks to not be able to save enough for T20 schools, but in reality most people can't, just like most people will never drive a $100K car.  However, nobody is saying you cannot go to college and get a GREAT education.  If you truly wanted your kid to attend Harvard, then you had to make choices along the way to save for it or perhaps smartly say, "we cannot afford to save that much on our budget, but we will save $200K for each kid so they can attend any school (state or private) that costs less than $50K/year without having to take on any debt.

If your kid has the resume to compete for a T20 school, they can find many schools in the 20-100 rankings that will be less than $50K/year.  All good schools.

This complaining that "we can't afford T20 schools" is akin to complaining you can't afford a 100K Tesla.  Just like there are many other completely affordable cars to get that fully work and get you where you need to be, there are hundreds of great schools that your kid can afford with $50K/year limit.  Just get out of the mindset that "it's not fair" and "Johnny deserves to attend Harvard".  Rankings are not really that important.  Much more important to Get a great education that's affordable to you.  There are literally only about 2k*20 freshman slots at T20 schools (actually it's less, because many of them only enroll 1400-1600 freshman, not 2K).  
Similarly, the poor kid from a rural area cannot afford to attend Harvard even if they get in and get FA, because the cost of travel, cost of being away from home (family might need them around more than just 2 weeks at xmas)---the intangibles of costs for a very poor person attending an elite university with mostly MC and Rich people.

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