Note that Brown is known for having worse FA than many (all?) of its Ivy League peers. One can also find examples of Ivy+ colleges that give FA in this scenario. For example, using those same stats at Princeton ($300k income, with $500k savings/investments), I get the following. Also note that with 2 siblings at Princeton, total cost is $27k * 2 = $54k – the same total cost as 1 kid at Princeton.
You also don’t have to make 300K per year. Why not just make less and become eligible for need based aid that way? Or use the 500K for in savings to pay for at least the first two years of college? Or if you own a home, downsize to a 2 bedroom apartment and use the money from the sale to help defray tuition costs. Or borrow and slowly pay back over many years?
In Colorado, your state taxes are based on your federal taxes. Yes, you do pay sales tax but that doesn’t support the college and university system. My kids went to college in Wyo and Florida, two states without income tax (but FL taxes everything else and Wyo just has a lot of money to fund education and only one school to support).
I get your point but I think most states, even Pennsylvania, have some school that most students can afford or they have ways for residents to get a college degree - work and go part time, live at home, military, free community college. It is not as much fun as Stanford but it can be done. My kids didn’t have the choice of going to a full pay $50k school and I was fine telling them that. Two kids, one parent who never made a lot, and I didn’t feel guilty about it at all. We did take a couple of vacations (Ive skied at Aspen but they haven’t, at least not on my dime), I did drive a 15 year old Honda until it was 22 years old, I did pay for some sports but not thousands, and one kid did get a college scholarship out of it.
But I have no issue with schools charging $100k if that is the group they want to attract to their schools. Just wouldn’t be my kids.
Princeton’s NPC formula expects parents to contribute 5% of non-retirement savings above $200k. So $200k + $92k/5% = $2 million in non-retirement savings would be full pay, regardless of income. The NPC returns non-zero FA with $150k income and $1.99M in non-retirement savings
I just ran the NPC for Harvard. NPC was $90k per year. Am I doing this incorrectly?
Pennsylvania college affordability is not good for those living outside the major metros. The rugged terrain limits commutability, so more community colleges, PASSHE campuses, and CSHE branch campuses must exist to increase the percentage of students within commuting range, but many of these campuses are very small with limited offerings and dubious financial sustainability. In-state financial aid is not great, which leads to Pennsylvania having relatively high levels of student loan debt compared to other states (86% higher than in California).
Compare states and individual colleges here: Interactive Map - The Institute for College Access & Success
Using the Harvard NPC, I get FA for 2 kids in college, but not 1 kid in college. I also checked Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn, MIT, Stanford, and Yale NPCs which all return FA for both 1 kid in college and 2 kids in college.
I’m not sure why Harvard is worse in this scenario. Harvard seems to have recently increased expectations for parental contributions from savings/investments. The Harvard calc is expecting contributions for assets above $50k, when previously contributions started at $200k. The scholarship for $300k income also seems worse than I remember. Perhaps there were changes after the federal funding clashes.
Different Ivy+ colleges have different FA calculations. Among Ivies, Princeton is usually the best, and Brown is usually worst or near worst.