Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

But, look at this thread carefully: The MIT, Cal Tech and Harvard type kids of parents earning $250,000, who are truly unusual kids and need an unusual environment, can usually go to those schools or near equivalents without the parents eating catfood.

It’s the normal bright kids who are usually well-served by going to a school like Towson who are going to Towson.

If we earned $250K we could easily do it as we never changed our lifestyle as our income slightly increased, we aren't traveling and our only high cost expenses are activities. It's all about life choices. If you want a million dollar house, don't complain you cannot afford college. We bought a $400K shack, DIY'ed, put an effort into paying it off before college, etc. And going out to eat often is the $4 Wendy's meal not starbucks.

starbucks again

there is not $4 meal at Wendy's and there hasn't been in a while.

Yes, there is, it's on the app, you can upgrade the fries and coke for slightly more. You can save a lot of money with some companies using their app.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

But, look at this thread carefully: The MIT, Cal Tech and Harvard type kids of parents earning $250,000, who are truly unusual kids and need an unusual environment, can usually go to those schools or near equivalents without the parents eating catfood.

It’s the normal bright kids who are usually well-served by going to a school like Towson who are going to Towson.

If we earned $250K we could easily do it as we never changed our lifestyle as our income slightly increased, we aren't traveling and our only high cost expenses are activities. It's all about life choices. If you want a million dollar house, don't complain you cannot afford college. We bought a $400K shack, DIY'ed, put an effort into paying it off before college, etc. And going out to eat often is the $4 Wendy's meal not starbucks.

starbucks again

there is not $4 meal at Wendy's and there hasn't been in a while.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 1 kid that will go 4 yrs in state. The other is doing HS DE and will finish his last 2 yrs in state. I think where they go for grad school is more important than where they go for undergrad.

Grad school is not that big a commodity anymore, work experience ia valuable.

Depends on the grad school. Good luck getting any work experience in many white collar jobs without a grad degree— doctor and many allied health fields, lawyer, CPA, etc. sure, you can get a BS in CS and be self taught from there. But it’s not like you can be a self taught surgeon.

Obviously not talking about higher degree required fields like MD, Lawyer, etc.

However, sure it depends on the grad school. MS in history? Doesn't add much value.

MS in CS specializing in Cyber security, AI, Machine Learning, etc. Big added value.

DUH

DP it wasn't obvious to me that you were talking only about masters degrees in humanities.

--a humanities person who does look for degrees higher than BA's when I hire others who also have humanities degrees.

We make less. Our plan is that we will have our mortgage paid off when our oldest is in high school, freeing up more money to pay as we go for college. We also are funding 529s but I don’t know yet if that will be enough, hence the mortgage plan. It’s also likely that we will inherit some limited amount of money by the time my girls are in college, but like anyone else, we won’t and shouldn’t plan on that as a financial strategy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

But, look at this thread carefully: The MIT, Cal Tech and Harvard type kids of parents earning $250,000, who are truly unusual kids and need an unusual environment, can usually go to those schools or near equivalents without the parents eating catfood.

It’s the normal bright kids who are usually well-served by going to a school like Towson who are going to Towson.

If we earned $250K we could easily do it as we never changed our lifestyle as our income slightly increased, we aren't traveling and our only high cost expenses are activities. It's all about life choices. If you want a million dollar house, don't complain you cannot afford college. We bought a $400K shack, DIY'ed, put an effort into paying it off before college, etc. And going out to eat often is the $4 Wendy's meal not starbucks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question says it all. I have been hearing all of my friends who are federal government workers saying their kids are not eligible for financial aid. But I don't think this is enough $ in income to afford $70K in college costs per kid per year. And it's not as though these families had extra income before their kids went to college - in this area, a mortgage, saving for retirement, and cost of raising kids will eat up all of that income. Where does the extra $ come from if they don't get financial aid?

My kids aren’t in schools that cost $70000 per year. One is enrolled in a mid level state school at instate tuition rate. The other is enrolled in a midlevel LAC that gives substantial merit aid. I’m paying about $13000 pe etc year per kid, including room and board. It’s paining not impossible. I gave them a 5 year limit to complete undergrad.

This is the best strategy for our family. One is looking at law school and one is looking at med school. They don’t need undergrad loans to go with the grad loans, and I would like to retire without a lot of debt.

My kid has 4 years to complete college. If they need 5 years, they can pay for the 5th year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make less, we save starting at birth, make savings a priority, no vacations, etc. and state school.

Yep. Started saving when we were TRYING to have our first. Opened a 529 with monthly contributions of $25. Neither of us are "rich" but we are doing fine. Lived in the same house for 24 years. Only the past couple of years do we have combined salaries in excess of $250k. Limited our two children to $50K/yr each which pretty much limits them to public.

There are a lot of private schools where merit can bring the price down to $50k or lower. Just have to look beyond T30ish

True but they are usually well below T50 for top easy attainable merit. Why pursue it if the publics in question are UVA and Wiilliam&Mary?

Maybe because it's not a sure thing that you'd get into UVA or W&M? Isn't that evident why you'd "pursue" applying to more than just a couple of publics?

DC did not get into either but got offered merit from Case Western that brought down the price to that of an OOS flagship. So yeah, glad they pursued that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We opened 529 plans when our kids were born and have been saving steadily since. Unless you have a trust fund, grandparents willing to pay or inheritance, there is no other way to do it other than slow and steady saving.

We have enough for $100K a year (and any extra will go towards grad school, if kids don't use that up we will reallocate to any grandkids).

100k will cover 3 years of a state schools, maybe a little less.

Sorry, me again, completely misread. You are in very good shape then!

Anonymous wrote:We opened 529 plans when our kids were born and have been saving steadily since. Unless you have a trust fund, grandparents willing to pay or inheritance, there is no other way to do it other than slow and steady saving.

We have enough for $100K a year (and any extra will go towards grad school, if kids don't use that up we will reallocate to any grandkids).

100k will cover 3 years of a state schools, maybe a little less.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question says it all. I have been hearing all of my friends who are federal government workers saying their kids are not eligible for financial aid. But I don't think this is enough $ in income to afford $70K in college costs per kid per year. And it's not as though these families had extra income before their kids went to college - in this area, a mortgage, saving for retirement, and cost of raising kids will eat up all of that income. Where does the extra $ come from if they don't get financial aid?

My kids aren’t in schools that cost $70000 per year. One is enrolled in a mid level state school at instate tuition rate. The other is enrolled in a midlevel LAC that gives substantial merit aid. I’m paying about $13000 pe etc year per kid, including room and board. It’s paining not impossible. I gave them a 5 year limit to complete undergrad.

This is the best strategy for our family. One is looking at law school and one is looking at med school. They don’t need undergrad loans to go with the grad loans, and I would like to retire without a lot of debt.

13,000 per year for tuition, room and board is amazing. SUNY for the universities is about 28,000 per year for tuition, fees room and board.

We opened 529 plans when our kids were born and have been saving steadily since. Unless you have a trust fund, grandparents willing to pay or inheritance, there is no other way to do it other than slow and steady saving.

We have enough for $100K a year (and any extra will go towards grad school, if kids don't use that up we will reallocate to any grandkids).

Hi OP,

New poster. We make $250 but only for the past few years, we were at $150 when the kids were in daycare for example.

We are focused on public schools and looking to pay less than $50/k a year, so $200k per kid.

Our 18 year old is going to an SEC oos public school where he got a $16/k a year scholarship. Total yearly cost $44k all in.

We have $100k saved for him in 529 and $80k for DC2 age 16. The rest we will pay through selling some stock bonuses I have received (80k), cash flow, and loans or home equity if needed.

I feel very lucky and I can’t believe some people are trying to pay $50-80k a year on less than $200k hhi. It means a lot of loans.

Anonymous wrote:Question says it all. I have been hearing all of my friends who are federal government workers saying their kids are not eligible for financial aid. But I don't think this is enough $ in income to afford $70K in college costs per kid per year. And it's not as though these families had extra income before their kids went to college - in this area, a mortgage, saving for retirement, and cost of raising kids will eat up all of that income. Where does the extra $ come from if they don't get financial aid?

My kids aren’t in schools that cost $70000 per year. One is enrolled in a mid level state school at instate tuition rate. The other is enrolled in a midlevel LAC that gives substantial merit aid. I’m paying about $13000 pe etc year per kid, including room and board. It’s paining not impossible. I gave them a 5 year limit to complete undergrad.

This is the best strategy for our family. One is looking at law school and one is looking at med school. They don’t need undergrad loans to go with the grad loans, and I would like to retire without a lot of debt.

Anonymous wrote:We make less, we save starting at birth, make savings a priority, no vacations, etc. and state school.

+1
It is a bit early in the thread to be so rude. OP ask a very question.

So is the takeaway that elite colleges like Ivies, NESCA, are open to the rich and the poor, but not those in the middle?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 1 kid that will go 4 yrs in state. The other is doing HS DE and will finish his last 2 yrs in state. I think where they go for grad school is more important than where they go for undergrad.

Grad school is not that big a commodity anymore, work experience ia valuable.

Depends on the grad school. Good luck getting any work experience in many white collar jobs without a grad degree— doctor and many allied health fields, lawyer, CPA, etc. sure, you can get a BS in CS and be self taught from there. But it’s not like you can be a self taught surgeon.

Obviously not talking about higher degree required fields like MD, Lawyer, etc.

However, sure it depends on the grad school. MS in history? Doesn't add much value.

MS in CS specializing in Cyber security, AI, Machine Learning, etc. Big added value.

DUH