Our household income is $180K.
We have one child at a T10, need-blind school.
We currently pay about $20K annually, plus personal expenses. The total cost of attendance is roughly $90K — we are eternally grateful for the support.
We don’t have any assets outside of our home, and we still have a long way to go before the mortgage is paid off.

It's just an advertisement.

Use college Net Price Calculators if you really want to know. Do not be misled by an ad.

Anonymous wrote:There are methods to hide income and assets to try to qualify but I have no interest in playing that game. Plus we have the GI bill, savings & money to easily afford college.

Loopholes

Anonymous wrote:This is the sort of post that only someone who was never close to qualifying for financial aid could make. Do you think at the colleges that are tuition free for families earning under $200k are giving nothing to families who earn $201k? NO!!!!

You are wrong. In fact those colleges are giving nothing to families that earn $201k, and even $150k, if those families have saved responsibility. On the other hand, there are irresponsible families (or families who are particularly good at hiding assets) who are getting some aid up to $250k or even more.

Anonymous wrote:Why do people even apply to private colleges if they can’t afford it? I don’t get the mindset that you have a right to go to an expensive, private college. If you can’t afford it, don’t go. Go to community college (make it free!) and then public university. This is how California has structured their system and it seems to work. Yes, it infuriates me that we pay close to $100,000 and other people pay $10,000.

I wouldn’t at all, and didn’t. But it’s very good marketing when they say free tuition if you make under a certain amount of money. Come to find out it’s not as cut and dry. The only reason my family would apply is if it really was income under $200,000. But we have other assets so it turns our we would not qualify.

Anonymous wrote:My children were not the recipients of college aid, but I see nothing problematic about the children of people of lesser means getting financial aid. I'm 100% supportive of policies that try to level the playing field. I also think most of the people posting on this thread should pay a lot more in taxes.

Those of you posting that college should be free for everyone are presumably aware that that would be financed by higher taxes on upper-middle and upper class people? So such people will pay one way or another. I agree that funding college via taxes and allowing everyone to go free would be better, because (as this discussion illustrates) the only way to generate widespread support for aid to the poor is to give aid to everyone.

But it's not clear to me how free college would work in a country with so many private universities that people want to go to. I assume in a world of free college, Harvard would still be offering aid to lower-income students because they clearly see that as part of their mission.

Keep your damn words out of others' taxes

There are methods to hide income and assets to try to qualify but I have no interest in playing that game. Plus we have the GI bill, savings & money to easily afford college.

This is the sort of post that only someone who was never close to qualifying for financial aid could make. Do you think at the colleges that are tuition free for families earning under $200k are giving nothing to families who earn $201k? NO!!!!

I know what the OP means about boarding schools. I went to one in the 90s. My
parents— we thought upper middle class but weren’t really, one ibm engineer and one technician—didn’t qualify for any aid. It was a huge sacrifice. My own kids go to a DCPS public school. We make about $280k so wouldn’t qualify for free tuition, but I think that’s fine. We are fortunate we have assets, so don’t begrudge those who do qualify.

Anonymous wrote:I’m wondering what the real motivation is for some schools to do this.

Hopkins is doing it, right?

While I know one kid currently at Hopkins, I know a dozen who passed on the school because of its location (read: fear).

So is that why some schools are doing this? To attract smart kids who could go to pretty much any other school on a full ride?

I just wish someone could figure out how to make college more affordable. It’s all become ridiculously expensive.

It’s done for marketing, PR, and virtue signaling, of course

Anonymous wrote:We're parents of a junior with a HHI of just under 500 so not super invested in this, but every top school we've been to with programs like this does seem to have tiers. 200K and under is free, but there are discounts into the 300s.

Believe me, I've flirted with "what if I quit my sub-100K job" and even if we were able to disregard the bonus and stock part of my spouse's compensation to squeak in a large discount, it's a wash.

Seems totally fair to me.

This. The headline will say "free tuition under 150k" but the reality is usually a stepped system so families pay increasingly more as their incomes go up.

I do agree we need a better solution overall because the system seems to punish families who save. So for instance, we forgo vacations and new clothes and cars to save for college -- it seems crazy to me that a family with a similar income to ours would get more aid because they spent more of their income on fun stuff instead of saving. In recent years, though, that "aid" has been in the form of loans, which we want to avoid, so I didn't mind. But now we're talking about the burden of loans and more schools are moving towards grants, so the problem returns.

Tho with private schools -- they are going to do what they want. If we had a good public university system that was genuinely affordable even to families with few (or any) assets, I wouldn't care what privates did. A lot of this is driven by public schools getting more and more expensive.

Fyi, Be careful about making assumptions. We earn 160 and received NO aid. From an ivy school that promises full aid to families up to 200k. We own our home and our 'assets' were deemed too high. We don't live a lavish lifestyle and drive an 8 year old honda. Yes, we have some saved for retirement and 529. But we are older (age 55/60) and this is our last kid. Seems that responsibility is a penalty. We didnt expect a lot, but thought we would get something, maybe 10? 15?. The full rejection was a surprise. So we will continue to deplete our assests amd try for aid again next year...

I only like the free market when it benefits me personally

*in a world of free state colleges

Anonymous wrote:It shouldn’t be all or nothing. Someone making $190k can afford plenty tuition. Someone making $120k can afford some tuition. It pisses me off that I have to pay more so that someone else can pay nothing. We’ll likely be skipping private schools for OOS.

System working as intended. Bye!