Anonymous wrote:We're in this range, not huge assets other than a house that has appreciated a ton, and I have one going to an Ivy this fall. Yesterday she said "Well, they updated my aid... to $77." Yes, that's seventy seven dollars. Another Ivy offered something like $37K/year but this one is not playing.

Which Ivy is this? We noticed a wide range of aid offered even among the ivies. Princeton being the absolute most generous and Brown being the worst.

Very curious about how anyone with multiple children in college at the same time did this year with need-based financial aid with CSS Profile schools in this $250k-$400k+ income range? As a parent with twins going to college in a couple of years, the new FAFSA rule changes eliminating the ability to split the family contribution among the number of kids in college at the same time pretty much directly hammered us, but it’s opaque to me what the CSS Profile schools have been doing for families with multiple children in college.

We're in this range, not huge assets other than a house that has appreciated a ton, and I have one going to an Ivy this fall. Yesterday she said "Well, they updated my aid... to $77." Yes, that's seventy seven dollars. Another Ivy offered something like $37K/year but this one is not playing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... without including home equity and retirement savings?

If you make 250K stop begging for money and use your savings...

Nope. Disagree. If some kids get to go for cheaper, then they all should. Why should UMC -not wealthy- have to deplete their savings? College should not be an economic field leveler.

So you think your kid should pay the same as a kid who has grown up in inner city Chicago (insert any big city with large poor population) with a single parent who barely makes $40k/year? You seriously don't see the advantages to society as a whole by ensuring that kid gets a college education and opportunity to break the cycle?!?!?!

FYI--it's not state universities that are doing this. It is PRIVATE universities, and they can choose how to use their endowment accordingly. Majority would argue that if you are making $250K, you could have found a way to save, if it was important to you. Queue the argument "but we haven't been making that for 20 years". Ok, well as your salary increased, you could have chosen to save all of it (or even just 75% of the increase) towards college. Saving $25-40K for 3-5 years would go a long way to paying for college.

Saving 40k per year for 5 years is 200k. If you have two kids, that's one year each at a private university.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... without including home equity and retirement savings?

If you make 250K stop begging for money and use your savings...

Nope. Disagree. If some kids get to go for cheaper, then they all should. Why should UMC -not wealthy- have to deplete their savings? College should not be an economic field leveler.

Then you are a LUCKY PERSON! Because that is exactly how it works at the tiny number of meets full need schools. Every family goes according to their ability to pay. So no one pays more of their assets than another!

Now, if you are saying you want your net amount to be the same as a poor person's... well I am guessing you are not saying that since you are so concerned about fairness, because that would be MASSIVELY unfair, right?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... without including home equity and retirement savings?

If you make 250K stop begging for money and use your savings...

This! Or go outside the T25 and with top stats, you will find many excellent schools with good merit.
But yes, if you make 250K, you are in T10% nationally

250k gets aid at top schools. Cost of attendance is pushing 100k and people have multiple kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know guys. My DD was not Ivy material but she really loved Syracuse. I ran the net price calculator before she applied and they included a “Syracuse gift” (not merit, not FA) of about 30k so I let her apply. She got in and got absolutely nothing.

They included it, or listed that it she was possibly eligible to win?

If it was genuinely included, you should take that printout or screenshot and send it to them informing them they violated federal law and see if they want to fix it immediately.

Can it be considered a violation of federal law if it’s just a net price calculator? I can’t imagine that estimate is set in stone.

In accordance with the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), as amended, as of October 29, 2011 each postsecondary institution that participates in the Title IV federal student aid programs is required to post a net price calculator on its Web site that uses institutional data to provide estimated net price information to current and prospective students and their families based on a student's individual circumstances. This calculator should allow students to calculate an estimated net price of attendance at an institution (defined as cost of attendance minus grant and scholarship aid) based on what similar students paid in a previous year. The net price calculator is required for all Title IV institutions that enroll full-time, first-time degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduate students.

Institutions may meet this requirement by using the U.S. Department of Education's Net Price Calculator template or by developing their own customized calculator that includes, at a minimum, the same elements as the Department's template.

Minimum Required Elements
Institutions that choose to customize or build their own net price calculator must include, at a minimum, the following input and output elements:

Input elements must include:

Data elements to approximate the student's Expected Family Contribution (EFC), such as income, number in family, and dependency status or factors that estimate dependency status*
*An institution may use either Federal Methodology or Institutional Methodology to approximate the student's EFC.

Output elements must include:

Estimated total cost of attendance;
Estimated tuition and fees;
Estimated room and board;
Estimated books and supplies;
Estimated other expenses (personal expenses, transportation, etc.);
Estimated total grant aid;
Estimated net price;
Percent of the cohort (full-time, first-time students) that received grant aid; and
Caveats and disclaimers, as indicated in the HEA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$250K families are getting merit aid at T30? Since when?

I am OP and I ran a few calculators and you can get a lot of aid at Harvard and Princeton. The cost gets pretty close to UMD (we are in MD).

I got almost zero aid at, for example Carnegie Mellon. Since there are a lot of schools and we are still some year out of applying, I am looking for leads on other top schools where aid is available.

I ran the NPC for CMU, and it came back at FEC $100K per year. Our HHI was about $300K at the time.

Guessing you have more than $400 of assets (not including retirement and primary residence)?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... without including home equity and retirement savings?

If you make 250K stop begging for money and use your savings...

Nope. Disagree. If some kids get to go for cheaper, then they all should. Why should UMC -not wealthy- have to deplete their savings? College should not be an economic field leveler.

Why not?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know guys. My DD was not Ivy material but she really loved Syracuse. I ran the net price calculator before she applied and they included a “Syracuse gift” (not merit, not FA) of about 30k so I let her apply. She got in and got absolutely nothing.

^
point being I lost faith in these calculators

They are usually quite accurate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$250K families are getting merit aid at T30? Since when?

I am OP and I ran a few calculators and you can get a lot of aid at Harvard and Princeton. The cost gets pretty close to UMD (we are in MD).

I got almost zero aid at, for example Carnegie Mellon. Since there are a lot of schools and we are still some year out of applying, I am looking for leads on other top schools where aid is available.

I ran the NPC for CMU, and it came back at FEC $100K per year. Our HHI was about $300K at the time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... without including home equity and retirement savings?

If you make 250K stop begging for money and use your savings...

Nope. Disagree. If some kids get to go for cheaper, then they all should. Why should UMC -not wealthy- have to deplete their savings? College should not be an economic field leveler.

So you think your kid should pay the same as a kid who has grown up in inner city Chicago (insert any big city with large poor population) with a single parent who barely makes $40k/year? You seriously don't see the advantages to society as a whole by ensuring that kid gets a college education and opportunity to break the cycle?!?!?!

FYI--it's not state universities that are doing this. It is PRIVATE universities, and they can choose how to use their endowment accordingly. Majority would argue that if you are making $250K, you could have found a way to save, if it was important to you. Queue the argument "but we haven't been making that for 20 years". Ok, well as your salary increased, you could have chosen to save all of it (or even just 75% of the increase) towards college. Saving $25-40K for 3-5 years would go a long way to paying for college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First your kid has to get in and it appears this is your first go around with this. It's not what you think and be prepared to a) not get in and b) to not get the money you think you will

No, my kid doesn't need to first get in. Schools we can't afford can be ruled out immediately, without getting in first.

Yes, please sit down with your kid by Junior year and go over finances with them. If you can only afford $X K per year (4*X total), then don't let them apply to schools that don't give merit, you won't qualify for financial aid, that cost a lot more than that. Simply don't. Make sure your kid knows that you most likely cannot afford certain schools.

Go outside T30 schools and a top stat kid can begin to find excellent merit bringing cost down to in-state or just over that.
Make sure your kid has 95% of their school choices be ones you most likely can afford

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... without including home equity and retirement savings?

If you make 250K stop begging for money and use your savings...

This! Or go outside the T25 and with top stats, you will find many excellent schools with good merit.
But yes, if you make 250K, you are in T10% nationally

Anonymous wrote:The first PP provided a typical response. I hate that - because it's without any context whatsoever. You have no idea how long the income has been 250K. You have no idea of their expenses (supporting elderly parents, or special needs children).

So, to answer the question, one response is the Ivy League. It's a gamble, but the schools that do not provide scholarships ("merit aid") are more generous with financial aid. They have to be. HYP do not cost $80K a year for families with $250K income. They do cost, however. They just are more likely to be in the 40-50K range.

Another response is your flagship or desired State U, if it's in the Top 30, which some are. In that case, they do not provide "the most aid" technically, but they do in the fact that you've paid for the lower in-state tuition through taxes.

There is a myth that it's super easy to save hundreds of thousands of dollars on 250K. That may or may not be the case. So many variables at play - cost of living, size of family, health expenses, age of parents, etc. For a family with low expenses and one child, it might be easy. For a family with 3+ children and higher than average health care expenses, not so much. So, to the first PP, take a hike.

+1000