sssbynais.org

Anonymous wrote:I wish these threads would not devolve into crossfire over "people having a right to private education." Is anyone even making that claim?

The question most people are asking is, "How do I size up what I can / ought to be able to afford." And: "What do the schools expect / offer?"

Given the high cost of living in the region, these are fair questions.

Thank you for your kind response and others likewise. We don't need to get mean on here guys. And to clarify I meant to say "DC region" for a house but it's actually Northern VA where we bought our place.

We don't have anything fancy- no fancy cars- nothing. We scrape by in this city and did so even before buying a house. We saved for over a decade. It's an expensive city. bUt we don't need character judging. Different people and priorities are different to different people. I am just asking if we would qualify

Anyway, some SSS site was mentioned. Sorry to be naive. What is this site? Would you be able to provide an address for it? I would love to put in our numbers.

Thanks so much

I wish these threads would not devolve into crossfire over "people having a right to private education." Is anyone even making that claim?

The question most people are asking is, "How do I size up what I can / ought to be able to afford." And: "What do the schools expect / offer?"

Given the high cost of living in the region, these are fair questions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here, when you fill out the forms for FA, it is like a financial X-ray. You have to list the purchase price of your home, how much you have left to pay, your investments, the make and model of your cars, if you went on vacation, where you went ad how much you spent, if you have any employees in your household (butler, nanny, gardener, etc), if you have any debts and there is a space for notes (i.e., you have an elderly parent, child with special needs, a spouse that just lost their job, etc). I don't know which elements of the application carry more weight. If you have a lot of credit card debt, you may want to explain, "I lost my job and used my credit cards to keep from defaulting on our mortgage." If you have debt because you are a shop-aholic, they aren't going to help you. The schools are looking at the whole picture. When we were offered aid, I specifically asked: assuming our finances don't change drastically from year to year, can we expect to receive the same amount of money? They said yes, they assumed they were making a commitment until our child graduated.

I would sincerely hope that any family receiving financial aid at any school in this area does not employ a household staff of a butler, nanny or gardener.

Signed,

A parent who works hard to pay full freight for two kids and gets tired of the "please donate to financial aid" pitches

With the nanny it depends. My child's daycare center is charging 1800/m for infants. With twins, or three small kids in the house, I can imagine the nanny coming out cheaper. Depending on hours needed, etc.

The butler would be surprise I'd think! I hope?

Or, OP can simply accept the fact that they cannot afford a private school. Apparently, some people need to be reminded that it is not a given right.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here, when you fill out the forms for FA, it is like a financial X-ray. You have to list the purchase price of your home, how much you have left to pay, your investments, the make and model of your cars, if you went on vacation, where you went ad how much you spent, if you have any employees in your household (butler, nanny, gardener, etc), if you have any debts and there is a space for notes (i.e., you have an elderly parent, child with special needs, a spouse that just lost their job, etc). I don't know which elements of the application carry more weight. If you have a lot of credit card debt, you may want to explain, "I lost my job and used my credit cards to keep from defaulting on our mortgage." If you have debt because you are a shop-aholic, they aren't going to help you. The schools are looking at the whole picture. When we were offered aid, I specifically asked: assuming our finances don't change drastically from year to year, can we expect to receive the same amount of money? They said yes, they assumed they were making a commitment until our child graduated.

I would sincerely hope that any family receiving financial aid at any school in this area does not employ a household staff of a butler, nanny or gardener.

Signed,

A parent who works hard to pay full freight for two kids and gets tired of the "please donate to financial aid" pitches

+1

If you were just able to buy a house in DC, you can't be that poor. I am amazed at how financial aid works. So if you use your almost all of your savings to buy a house, you can get financial aid but if you have savings because you are cautious and worried about not having enough of an emergency fund and/or you can't afford a house in DC, you won't get financial aid because schools would want you to spend that money on tuition. I still can't get over the fact that families making over 200k are getting financial aid. Even at 140k if you have one kid I don't get why financial aid is given when private school is a choice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here, when you fill out the forms for FA, it is like a financial X-ray. You have to list the purchase price of your home, how much you have left to pay, your investments, the make and model of your cars, if you went on vacation, where you went ad how much you spent, if you have any employees in your household (butler, nanny, gardener, etc), if you have any debts and there is a space for notes (i.e., you have an elderly parent, child with special needs, a spouse that just lost their job, etc). I don't know which elements of the application carry more weight. If you have a lot of credit card debt, you may want to explain, "I lost my job and used my credit cards to keep from defaulting on our mortgage." If you have debt because you are a shop-aholic, they aren't going to help you. The schools are looking at the whole picture. When we were offered aid, I specifically asked: assuming our finances don't change drastically from year to year, can we expect to receive the same amount of money? They said yes, they assumed they were making a commitment until our child graduated.

I would sincerely hope that any family receiving financial aid at any school in this area does not employ a household staff of a butler, nanny or gardener.

Signed,

A parent who works hard to pay full freight for two kids and gets tired of the "please donate to financial aid" pitches

With the nanny it depends. My child's daycare center is charging 1800/m for infants. With twins, or three small kids in the house, I can imagine the nanny coming out cheaper. Depending on hours needed, etc.

The butler would be surprise I'd think! I hope?

I just played around with the SSS form, because my sense was that we make too much to qualify for aid, but we were having a hard time figuring out how to responsibly budget for our favorite school. I have a low-cost house (under 200k) and income at about 200k. One kid. However, student loan debt and consumer debts are high, and we're just a few years out of school so we haven't had a chance to get out in front of these debts. So, our income is high but we're encumbered more than we'd like and just beginning with savings / retirement.

Bad news for me: The SSS analysis came back saying we can pay about 38k in their estimation -- which is a lot more than I feel comfortable budgeting. I have no idea if restructuring the debt would change the SSS analysis (it might give us some more liquidity, to get closer to the mark), or if explaining that the consumer debt is related to projects on the fixer-upper house would meet with some sympathy. But I suspect that the disjuncture between the estimate and what I feel I can wisely pay is simply a sign that we're not financially prepared, at least not yet. We'll probably just go to ground and work on the debt problem for a few years.

But maybe there's good news here for someone else: If you have two kids, or your house costs more, it seems possible that the SSS formula (and the related ones) will see you has having some demonstrated need.

Anonymous wrote:PP here, when you fill out the forms for FA, it is like a financial X-ray. You have to list the purchase price of your home, how much you have left to pay, your investments, the make and model of your cars, if you went on vacation, where you went ad how much you spent, if you have any employees in your household (butler, nanny, gardener, etc), if you have any debts and there is a space for notes (i.e., you have an elderly parent, child with special needs, a spouse that just lost their job, etc). I don't know which elements of the application carry more weight. If you have a lot of credit card debt, you may want to explain, "I lost my job and used my credit cards to keep from defaulting on our mortgage." If you have debt because you are a shop-aholic, they aren't going to help you. The schools are looking at the whole picture. When we were offered aid, I specifically asked: assuming our finances don't change drastically from year to year, can we expect to receive the same amount of money? They said yes, they assumed they were making a commitment until our child graduated.

I would sincerely hope that any family receiving financial aid at any school in this area does not employ a household staff of a butler, nanny or gardener.

Signed,

A parent who works hard to pay full freight for two kids and gets tired of the "please donate to financial aid" pitches

Anonymous wrote:How do they feel if you have credit card debt?

Depends on what the debt is for? Luxury items? They wont consider it. To cover medical expenses or other unusual circumstances, then they will.

Anonymous wrote:Question: If you get aid one year will you more than likely keep getting it the rest of the school year?

This is something we always wonder about. I know you have to apply every year but would they give aid to someone 2 years and then drop then (provided salary etc didn't change)?

I would lean towards thinking not, otherwise you would have a lot of kids coming and going and unable to graduate. But maybe wrong??

Unless your financial circumstances change drastically or the school encounters financial issues, you can expect your aid to remain fairly consistent and increase to cover the cost of tuition increase.

Anonymous wrote:If you have more than 100k HHI, you are unlikely to get aid. This is from personal experience. It is unfortunate, but true. With that said, may as well give it a shot. Who knows.

In my experience, this is not true. I am at almost $200K HHI and get financial aid. A lot of times it depends on the particular school. Deeper pocket school with well funded endowments will give aid.

Anonymous wrote:If you have more than 100k HHI, you are unlikely to get aid. This is from personal experience. It is unfortunate, but true. With that said, may as well give it a shot. Who knows.

Depends on the school. Here's info from Maret:

- 24% of students receive aid.

- The ave grant is $25,522.

- Of families receiving financial aid:
29% have gross household income under $100k
29% have gross household income between $100k and $150k
20% have gross household income between $150k and $200k
22% have gross household income above $200k

PP here, when you fill out the forms for FA, it is like a financial X-ray. You have to list the purchase price of your home, how much you have left to pay, your investments, the make and model of your cars, if you went on vacation, where you went ad how much you spent, if you have any employees in your household (butler, nanny, gardener, etc), if you have any debts and there is a space for notes (i.e., you have an elderly parent, child with special needs, a spouse that just lost their job, etc). I don't know which elements of the application carry more weight. If you have a lot of credit card debt, you may want to explain, "I lost my job and used my credit cards to keep from defaulting on our mortgage." If you have debt because you are a shop-aholic, they aren't going to help you. The schools are looking at the whole picture. When we were offered aid, I specifically asked: assuming our finances don't change drastically from year to year, can we expect to receive the same amount of money? They said yes, they assumed they were making a commitment until our child graduated.

How do they feel if you have credit card debt?