Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, this thread was an eye opener. Full pay parent here for two kids in Catholic private - about 40K per year. Our HHI is over 500K, and assets are close to 5MM. I am completely onboard for FA for socioeconomic diversity. I am amazed that people making 250K+ are getting FA. That's not diversity, and it's not reaching out for students whose lives you can really change with an education. 250K HHI is solidly middle class, and it sounds like FA is a way to make private an affordable luxury, versus going to what is probably a really good public. If that's URM and 250 HHI, that starts to feel like window dressing to me. This has really spun my head around on FA.

I guess another question I have for the folks in that range - private HS still not free. Even at 50% tuition, with a couple kids in school that 20 or 30K a year. How do you save for college? Do you just plan on loading your kids up with debt? I know for some debt is the only way through school, but if you are making 250K a year you should be able to put your kids through at the very least a state school debt free.

It has been shown that children of families with your HHI will shun the kids that are URM, but the kids from $100K-$250K families will not, because they have diversity in their family/neighborhoods/lives. They often are the only ones in their family with that income or the 1st ones. So they get a $2/4K break and it makes it affordable and they bridge the gap between the 1% and the URM -1%ers.

The $100K-$250K parents may have some college savings depending on what other expenses they have house/medical/etc, (and some have little retirement savings) but they will either work for the rest of their lives to pay for college, or they have an ethical ethos that kids need to have some "skin in the game" and they will need to take out some loans.

Anonymous wrote:one of the complicating issues around private school FA is that tuition remission for teachers is now taken out of the FA pot. So, a sizable portion of FA money that (I thought) was supposed help increase diversity, now supports teacher kids. Before I get flamed, I love our teachers and want them to be well compensated somehow - if it's not salary, then through tuition remission. And This wouldn't be an issue in my mind if the school made more of an effort to hire diverse teaching candidates, but the majority at our school are white and "from money." Maybe schools could separate FA for staff from the pool that is supposed to add some heterogeneity to the school...or hire more diverse staff!

Anonymous wrote:Wow, this thread was an eye opener. Full pay parent here for two kids in Catholic private - about 40K per year. Our HHI is over 500K, and assets are close to 5MM. I am completely onboard for FA for socioeconomic diversity. I am amazed that people making 250K+ are getting FA. That's not diversity, and it's not reaching out for students whose lives you can really change with an education. 250K HHI is solidly middle class, and it sounds like FA is a way to make private an affordable luxury, versus going to what is probably a really good public. If that's URM and 250 HHI, that starts to feel like window dressing to me. This has really spun my head around on FA.

I guess another question I have for the folks in that range - private HS still not free. Even at 50% tuition, with a couple kids in school that 20 or 30K a year. How do you save for college? Do you just plan on loading your kids up with debt? I know for some debt is the only way through school, but if you are making 250K a year you should be able to put your kids through at the very least a state school debt free.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to remind those complaining about FA on this board that if we are talking about middle or high school, aid is only offered if the school really wants your child. And why would they want a FA child. its not just for diversity it is so the school can keep up with the competition to send kids to top twenty colleges and universities. Brains and leadership in kids do not neatly correlate with high HHI parents.

Aid is only offered if the school wants your child no matter what grade level. I know of two families admitted to the same LS with almost identical HHIs. Both applied for FA. One was given a 60% award package and the other was told they could not offer them any FA and would place them in a FA wait pool. We can only surmise they really wanted the child they awarded the FA to.

Anonymous wrote:I would like to remind those complaining about FA on this board that if we are talking about middle or high school, aid is only offered if the school really wants your child. And why would they want a FA child. its not just for diversity it is so the school can keep up with the competition to send kids to top twenty colleges and universities. Brains and leadership in kids do not neatly correlate with high HHI parents.

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Anonymous wrote:We are a family of four and make about $200,000 but we also support my aging mother. Any chance of any FA?

As others have commented, it depends on your total financial picture. We are a family of 4 with HHI of 220k and we are in our second year of receiving $10K in aid. Both of us have student loans in addition to helping my mother out each month with her rent.

In other words, school parents paying full freight are subsidizing your mother. Fascinating.

FYI: The financial aid application asks if families are supporting elderly parents. Its up to the school to give us aid based on our financial situation, not you and if you feel the school is not a good steward of your money, then send your kid elsewhere and be sure to ask at the open house how they distribute aid so that you are comfortable that no one is getting subsidized, but I suspect you won't have the balls to make such comments in public. I don't view it as subsidizing my mother at all, we presented our financial picture, they determined we can pay $50k out of pocket and we do.

OK. You don't see it that way. I do see it that way. Facts speak for themselves, like it or not.

I agree with you (new poster here). Having loans and having an elderly parent to support may mean you can't afford private. I agree that it's up to the school to decide, but I would not want to pay full freight because others are supporting parents or didn't aggressively pay down loans (as others may have to get to their current ability to pay full). Private is a luxury, plain and simple. Not everyone can afford luxuries (and we don't go private, by choice, but that's another conversation).

NO, IT IS NOT. SOME KIDS CANNOT MAKE IT THROUGH THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS - THE "FACTORY MODEL" OF EDUCATION. THEY GET LOST, OVERLOOKED, DEPRESSED, BORED, YOU NAME IT....THIS IS WHY PEOPLE ARE SO DESPERATE TO GET INTO GOOD PRIVATES. THANK GOD FOR FINANCIAL AID AND FOR THE SPIRIT OF GIVING, COMMUNITY AND GENORISITY THAT IS VALUED AT MOST INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS (APPARENTLY NOT YOURS, IT'S IN THE MINORITY).

If you cannot afford 40K, you go to a 10K school like the rest of us. If you kid is bored, you supplement at home. You deal with it or you get another job to pay for it. The only kids who truly may need it are SN kids and financial aide is rarely available to them. I would love to send my kid to a 40+ a year SN school but we can't so we are at a small private, who is great, but doesn't fully get my child's needs.

Where are these 10K schools? None that I see in Rockville, Kensington, Silver Spring, Bethesda, Potomac, or Upper NW. Not everyone who lives/works in these areas is going to commute outside them ....where are you finding 10K high schools in this area???

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of four and make about $200,000 but we also support my aging mother. Any chance of any FA?

As others have commented, it depends on your total financial picture. We are a family of 4 with HHI of 220k and we are in our second year of receiving $10K in aid. Both of us have student loans in addition to helping my mother out each month with her rent.

In other words, school parents paying full freight are subsidizing your mother. Fascinating.

FYI: The financial aid application asks if families are supporting elderly parents. Its up to the school to give us aid based on our financial situation, not you and if you feel the school is not a good steward of your money, then send your kid elsewhere and be sure to ask at the open house how they distribute aid so that you are comfortable that no one is getting subsidized, but I suspect you won't have the balls to make such comments in public. I don't view it as subsidizing my mother at all, we presented our financial picture, they determined we can pay $50k out of pocket and we do.

OK. You don't see it that way. I do see it that way. Facts speak for themselves, like it or not.

I agree with you (new poster here). Having loans and having an elderly parent to support may mean you can't afford private. I agree that it's up to the school to decide, but I would not want to pay full freight because others are supporting parents or didn't aggressively pay down loans (as others may have to get to their current ability to pay full). Private is a luxury, plain and simple. Not everyone can afford luxuries (and we don't go private, by choice, but that's another conversation).

NO, IT IS NOT. SOME KIDS CANNOT MAKE IT THROUGH THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS - THE "FACTORY MODEL" OF EDUCATION. THEY GET LOST, OVERLOOKED, DEPRESSED, BORED, YOU NAME IT....THIS IS WHY PEOPLE ARE SO DESPERATE TO GET INTO GOOD PRIVATES. THANK GOD FOR FINANCIAL AID AND FOR THE SPIRIT OF GIVING, COMMUNITY AND GENORISITY THAT IS VALUED AT MOST INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS (APPARENTLY NOT YOURS, IT'S IN THE MINORITY).

If you cannot afford 40K, you go to a 10K school like the rest of us. If you kid is bored, you supplement at home. You deal with it or you get another job to pay for it. The only kids who truly may need it are SN kids and financial aide is rarely available to them. I would love to send my kid to a 40+ a year SN school but we can't so we are at a small private, who is great, but doesn't fully get my child's needs.

Anonymous wrote:This is why we designate our gifts to anything except FA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why we designate our gifts to anything except FA.

Funny that you actually believe they abide by your designation. LOL

Anonymous wrote:This is why we designate our gifts to anything except FA.

Anonymous wrote:So you are happy to take FA while others bankroll your kids education and tut tut at the "haters" who question why they should subsidize your kids tuition? I wish I'd been balsy enough to apply for FA on our income.