Columbia financial aid

Columbia2002
Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:39:55 +0000

this is true…they don’t look at your income before taxes and of course saying that your income is “cut in half” after taxes is a silly overstatement because we all know thats not true…we’re not in france or the UK …the most you would pay in taxes in the US is 33% not to mention when you file a return you are sure to find deductions up the wazoo.



You really don’t have a clue what you’re talking about here.

The highest tax bracket is 35%, and 200k easily puts you in the 33% tax bracket. That’s just federal. If you’re in NYC, you have to pay both a CITY income tax and a STATE income tax, which is going to total to about 10%. And then there’s FICA, which is another 8% or so.

And have you heard of the AMT? People who make 200k aren’t going to be able to get “deductions up the wazoo.” They won’t even be able to deduct a lot of their state/city income taxes. And they’re not rich enough to engage in complicated tax shelters.

So yes, it’s about half.



I thought the 200K was after all the taxes have been taken. Apparently not, my bad. That being said though, I thought college financial aid is given based on a family’s income after taxes not the 200K figure the OP gave. Quite misleading.



Not really misleading. People talk about their salaries in terms of their pre-tax money. People say “I make $20/hr” or “I make 200K/yr.” They don’t quote their salaries in terms of their post-tax amounts.