Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 20:50     Subject: Re:How do you pay for Harvard?
What gross income is usually the cut off for financial aid if it is your first child in college? I see the number $180,000 on the boards quite a bit.
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 18:29     Subject: Re:How do you pay for Harvard?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Is HHI pre or post tax? In other words is it AGI?


OP here--when I wrote out the scenario I assumed a gross salary, not a net of taxes salary.

Does anyone know whether you give the total HHI or the AGI for financial aid? We are right on the edge of not qualifying for anything unless they ask for our Adjusted Gross Income (which is not really income after paying taxes but rather the income that is subject to taxes). TIA


The calculator states gross

is that gross or adjusted gross? If its the former we are out of luck, if it is the latter, we can expect some help.
TIA


Gross. Not AGI. Plus the calculate any money in your child's name, such as 529.
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 18:24     Subject: Re:How do you pay for Harvard?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Is HHI pre or post tax? In other words is it AGI?


OP here--when I wrote out the scenario I assumed a gross salary, not a net of taxes salary.

Does anyone know whether you give the total HHI or the AGI for financial aid? We are right on the edge of not qualifying for anything unless they ask for our Adjusted Gross Income (which is not really income after paying taxes but rather the income that is subject to taxes). TIA


The calculator states gross

is that gross or adjusted gross? If its the former we are out of luck, if it is the latter, we can expect some help.
TIA
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 18:01     Subject: How do you pay for Harvard?
For the vast, vast majority of families, the Ivy League schools are an absolute steal. Families making less than 60K, for example, will go to Harvard for free. Families making up to $180K will pay 10% of their income.
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 18:00     Subject: How do you pay for Harvard?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How much is Harvard per year?


With room and board 60K


63k
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 17:59     Subject: Re:How do you pay for Harvard?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Is HHI pre or post tax? In other words is it AGI?


OP here--when I wrote out the scenario I assumed a gross salary, not a net of taxes salary.

Does anyone know whether you give the total HHI or the AGI for financial aid? We are right on the edge of not qualifying for anything unless they ask for our Adjusted Gross Income (which is not really income after paying taxes but rather the income that is subject to taxes). TIA


The calculator states gross
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 17:54     Subject: How do you pay for Harvard?
Anonymous wrote:ivies aren't as expensive as you'd think they are and the payoff of going to harvard > cost of attending


Relative to UMD or UVA, yes, Ivies are actually pretty expensive. DD goes to an Ivy, so we have some experience with this.

Also the payoff for going to Harvard most definitely depends on what your kid majors in while he's at Harvard. And whether he goes to a decent grad school, if that's in the cards. If he does finance at Harvard, then he's golden. Theater, not so much.
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 17:48     Subject: How do you pay for Harvard?
ivies aren't as expensive as you'd think they are and the payoff of going to harvard > cost of attending
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 17:18     Subject: Re:How do you pay for Harvard?
Anonymous wrote:I took out the max in subsidized and Perkins loans. My mom paid the rest out of her retirement accounts. My mom made 30k per year and didn't have anywhere else to pull money from besides her retirement accounts.

Still bitter about not getting much financial aide. Love the system where a divorced parent's income counts towards the family contribution despite him refusing to pay a penny.



I hear ya. My dad (my parents divorced when I was 5) refused to pay for college since he "did just fine without a college degree." He made a decent salary b/c he worked his way up at AT&T over many years but colleges didn't care that he wasn't going to pay the tuition. So I got zero in FA.
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 10:47     Subject: How do you pay for Harvard?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm just going to be a grumpy old lady for a minute here, but I'd like to point out that "back in my day" ( before student loans were widely available), if you couldn't afford to pay for it, you didn't go. I graduated with a ton of smart people who went to SUNY schools, because even though they were accepted at Ivy's and such, if the money wasn't there, it wasn't there. I guess the loan availability has changed the expectations, but I find that unfortunate.


Of course, back in the day, college didn't cost 130% of the average household salary either.


That's exactly it. The loosening of the standards for loans in the mid-90's meant that colleges were free to raise tuition, because the students could get loans to pay for it. It raised the cost for everyone. I think it also created this mentality that if you can get into a desirable college, that of course you should go, because you can get a loan to pay for it. The 18 year olds signing up for this weren't thinking about what it would take to pay back these loans down the road, when they were thinking about getting married, buying a house, starting a family.

The intention of the student loan program was to allow everyone to go to college. The unintentional consequence was the increase in cost for everyone, and teenagers mortgaging their future without fully understanding the burden they'd be facing later.


This the truth. Back in the day middle class and upper middle class families could afford private colleges with a few loans. Now the debt load to cover these VERY overpriced undergraduate educations is way too high.
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 10:34     Subject: Re:How do you pay for Harvard?
I took out the max in subsidized and Perkins loans. My mom paid the rest out of her retirement accounts. My mom made 30k per year and didn't have anywhere else to pull money from besides her retirement accounts.

Still bitter about not getting much financial aide. Love the system where a divorced parent's income counts towards the family contribution despite him refusing to pay a penny.
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 10:22     Subject: How do you pay for Harvard?
If my kid got into Harvard, she would not go. I did the price calculator thing referenced above, and Harvard would give us no aid. We don't have our retirement funds sheltered in our house or in 401(k)'s (wish we'd thought of this), so we're not eligible for FA, even from Harvard. Our HHI is <100K, so we ought to be eligible, but we stupidly put our retirement money into investments that have grown. Now the colleges want us to use our retirement funds to pay for DDs schooling. She's going to State U unless she gets a whole lotta those $1,000 scholarships.
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 10:06     Subject: How do you pay for Harvard?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm just going to be a grumpy old lady for a minute here, but I'd like to point out that "back in my day" ( before student loans were widely available), if you couldn't afford to pay for it, you didn't go. I graduated with a ton of smart people who went to SUNY schools, because even though they were accepted at Ivy's and such, if the money wasn't there, it wasn't there. I guess the loan availability has changed the expectations, but I find that unfortunate.


Of course, back in the day, college didn't cost 130% of the average household salary either.


That's exactly it. The loosening of the standards for loans in the mid-90's meant that colleges were free to raise tuition, because the students could get loans to pay for it. It raised the cost for everyone. I think it also created this mentality that if you can get into a desirable college, that of course you should go, because you can get a loan to pay for it. The 18 year olds signing up for this weren't thinking about what it would take to pay back these loans down the road, when they were thinking about getting married, buying a house, starting a family.

The intention of the student loan program was to allow everyone to go to college. The unintentional consequence was the increase in cost for everyone, and teenagers mortgaging their future without fully understanding the burden they'd be facing later.
Anonymous
Post 10/19/2014 09:57     Subject: How do you pay for Harvard?
You take out loans.
Anonymous
Post 10/17/2014 19:22     Subject: How do you pay for Harvard?
This is really interesting - b/c my DH was planning on changing jobs from Fed so we could pay for college.

In this case, if we pay off our house, put as much as we can into retirement savings, and get keep our fed jobs we would be better off.