<p>“Are you willing to cut your income in half - or more - to get this benefit?”</p>
<p>They aren’t asked to give up their pensions to get this aid, but others are told to spend/borrow against their only source of retirement income to pay for college there and are given loans, not grants. Look, I’m certainly not begrudging aid to families making less than 60,000 per year, and apologize if I gave that impression. I’m just questioning the fairness of some of the decisions made as to how to distribute aid – why kids from some groups should graduate without any loans and their parents pensions safe and others’ kids are supposed to graduate with loans and with their parents having given up retirement. I’m sure the FA decisions are difficult to make. But there is a valid issue here which probably is that at more than 200,000 for an undergrad degree, tuition is not affordable for even upper middle income families and even they need some aid. Now before people get bent out of shape about me saying this, yes, then S doesn’t need to go to U/C (and probably won’t) and yes, there are great schools that don’t have the high tuition costs where our children can get a wonderful education (and S has gotten into one & well may go there), and yes, then S can go to a state school (oldest does & loves it). But the spiraling tuition costs (even at state schools!) presents a problem for everyone.</p>