Some people want a deal for everything and it makes sense for them but people who spend money on goods of diminishing value like brand name cars, bags, etc can’t make a case against cost of elite college education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do see parents who have money and are are willing to spend money on every lifestyle luxury but education. It’s their money and their choice but for a student who worked hard to get accepted in a highly selective college, it’s puzzling because parents won’t pay and because of their wealth, student can’t qualify for financial aid, colleges don’t offer merit scholarship so there is no way for these students to afford cost of attendance.

You're being ridiculous.

UVA, for example, is full of kids who could have gone full pay to top 20 privates for three times the price but the parents concluded that it makes zero sense to do that whether they can afford it or not. And more often than not, they're right.

Not necessarily.

Anonymous wrote:I do see parents who have money and are are willing to spend money on every lifestyle luxury but education. It’s their money and their choice but for a student who worked hard to get accepted in a highly selective college, it’s puzzling because parents won’t pay and because of their wealth, student can’t qualify for financial aid, colleges don’t offer merit scholarship so there is no way for these students to afford cost of attendance.

You're being ridiculous.

UVA, for example, is full of kids who could have gone full pay to top 20 privates for three times the price but the parents concluded that it makes zero sense to do that whether they can afford it or not. And more often than not, they're right.

Parental ego and control does not come cheap

Most folks here are successful financially because they were good with managing their finances. They will research the cost-value proposition of solar energy for their estate, but pay whatever for the opportunity to go to a perceived selective school (not to mention the money on privates leading up to that). If they saved their money from private kindergarten through HS, tutors, instructors, extreme travel sports, and much more, they could simply hand their top 100 graduate a check for the difference (likely with several zeros), for absolutely the same station in life…

Anonymous wrote:I do see parents who have money and are are willing to spend money on every lifestyle luxury but education. It’s their money and their choice but for a student who worked hard to get accepted in a highly selective college, it’s puzzling because parents won’t pay and because of their wealth, student can’t qualify for financial aid, colleges don’t offer merit scholarship so there is no way for these students to afford cost of attendance.

It always astonishes me that people think they know everything about another family's financial situation and feel entitled to opine on how others can or should spend their money.

It also surprises me (although on DCUM it should not) that people believe that a family who they think can afford to pay $320,000 for an undergraduate degree for each of their multiple children, should pay $320,000 for each of them. People seem to believe that the degree from the elite school is worth it no matter the actual value of the dollars, how it might be spent in other ways, whether its expenditure will in fact provide more opportunities for a student from an UMC family.

Finally, it is striking that people believe that a student who works hard should be rewarded with a $320,000 education at an elite school, as if the same student educated elsewhere will surely fail and end up working at the 7-11.

Striking.

Anonymous wrote:I do see parents who have money and are are willing to spend money on every lifestyle luxury but education. It’s their money and their choice but for a student who worked hard to get accepted in a highly selective college, it’s puzzling because parents won’t pay and because of their wealth, student can’t qualify for financial aid, colleges don’t offer merit scholarship so there is no way for these students to afford cost of attendance.

That doesn’t seem to be the case here. The OP even said it was to send younger siblings to college and retirement. You can’t argue that’s not a priority.

Jeff Selingo (local author) puts out a spread sheet of percentage of non-need merit based aid each college distributes.

I do see parents who have money and are are willing to spend money on every lifestyle luxury but education. It’s their money and their choice but for a student who worked hard to get accepted in a highly selective college, it’s puzzling because parents won’t pay and because of their wealth, student can’t qualify for financial aid, colleges don’t offer merit scholarship so there is no way for these students to afford cost of attendance.