<p>Xiggi,
In the experience of our family and our acquaintances, families with two parents working in professional jobs, such as teacher, engineer, state government agency professional staff, do not qualify for need-based financial aid, especially if only one child is in college at a time. Are you implying that anyone in this situation who pays the full cost of college for their child is an idiot?</p>
<p>Correction I meant the 3 million dollars - can’t type or spell.</p>
<p>If I read it right, xiggi was sarcastically using the term patuxent used – it was patuxent who referred to a “sticker price that virtually nobody but an idiot pays”.</p>
<p>I am in a situation similar to the one you describe, MofTwo: my H and I both work as professionals, we bought a house in CA just before prices shot up so our equity is frightening, and we have one S about to go to college. I am not even bothering to fill out the FAFSA for need-based aid because I know they’ll just laugh at us. We may have to take a loan against that equity in the house and hope we keep our jobs for a few years, but we’ll end up paying the full ticket. And I do not accept the label “idiot”.</p>
<p>Mof2 - don’t blame xiggi blame me. But let me rephrase that. People who 150% or 200% of the actual going rate for a thing have been well sold by the professional doing the selling.</p>
<p>My apologies to Xiggi. I will now ask you a question. Do you think only those people whose incomes qualify them for need-based aid should send their kids to college? What should the rest of us do?</p>
<p>Dude, my kid wants to go to a school he’s been accepted to. We realize that our financial situation won’t qualify us for any aid. There is a price tag and I have to pay it.</p>
<p>What would you suggest we do, barter as if we were in an outdoor bazaar haggling over a tomato?</p>
<p>(PS: The kid is also contributing his own savings and summer employment income to this endeavor, by the way. That’s not what this is about: it’s about your assumption that idiots pay what’s on the sticker.)</p>
<p>Is that a question for me or for XIGGI MotherOfTwo?</p>
<p>It’s for you, patuxent, since you said that only an “idiot” would pay the sticker price. Seriously, what do you recommend that us idiots do about our kids’ college educations?</p>
<p>I was on a website today, Williams to be precise and looked at some of their sample aid packages, and a chart of different income stratas. My memory tells me that at the $100k mark, the vast , and I mean overwhelming majority of families received some need aid. I remember the low aid amount awarded was @$3,600 or so and the high was in the $20+ range. Families at the $120,000 level did reasonably well also- considering. I had seen numbers like this before at the Princeton site, and maybe a few others. Not many.</p>
<p>mootmom - now you know why the colleges have all the advantages in this situation. Most parents are going to run this gauntlet one, two, maybe three times. The college has your tax return and knows more about you than your proctologist. You the parent know virtually nothing about the colleges financial situation or enrollment goals. The in this situation where one side has a huge knowledge advantage we throw in ED and somebody is going to tell me there is honor involved here somewhere? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>The college wants those with money to pay for somebody elses education. Who exactly that someone is can vary from school to school. He s/he might be a brilliant biology student or a URM or an athelete or jsut somebody who plays the french horn.</p>
<p>MotherofTwo
It appears that you may be in a similar situation to ours. Not only has our home value risen since we bought it, but annual income may nudge us out of the reach of financial aid. So how do we escape the Idiot Label?</p>
<p>I am getting really ill from the thought of being in 2 loser categories. (1) losers who pay full freight (2) losers who did not give birth every year, and so don’t have college overlaps.</p>
<p>patuxent - You have stated that, in your view, the fees that colleges charge are unfair. I would now like your suggestion as to what parents like mootmom and me who do not qualify for need-based aid (although we are far from rich) do regarding our kids college educations, since you have said that only idiots would pay the full price?</p>
<p>mootmom–
i recommend you fill out FAFSA anyways. you will still be eligible for unsubsidized Stafford loans from the government, which at 2.77% interest rates are some of the best student loans out there. in addition, you can take out parent plus loans which have a 4.17?% interest rate. I believe that students can take out up to $2.5 K/year in stafford loans w/o financial need (dont quote me on that, though). Parent plus, as they are taken out under the parent’s name, dont have a limit.</p>
<p>Why is anyone bothering to address what is truly idiotic? Can we just be thankful that there are those who don’t see the value in private colleges thereby leaving space for those who do?</p>
<p>MotherOfTwo seriously I haven’t got an answer for what parents should do. The economic playing field is skewed and uneven with little room for the willing buyer and the willing seller to negotiate. Schools don’t want to break rank with their peers and start engaging in a bidding war so usually when you see it happen it is between institutions where there is a large “prestige” gap.</p>
<p>In theory one cartel could be countered by another. There are after all only so many bright kids to go around. But the kind of folks who aspire to Ivy’s aren’t the kind that are apt to act collectively and in any event are not apt to do it when their children are the weapon.</p>
<p>Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I am glad to hear that there isn’t some obvious solution that we have not thought of.</p>
<p>“But the kind of folks who aspire to Ivy’s aren’t the kind that are apt to act collectively” – speak for yourself if this fits. Don’t presume to speak for me.</p>
<p>I’ll figure out how to pay for the school that will give my son the best education he can handle. And kirmum, you’re quite right: no more need to address this non-subject, thanks for the sanity check. :)</p>
<p>Patuxent, top tier schools probably don’t have to worry, but what do you think is going to happen to the private schools that aren’t top tier when the baby boom echo kids are finished with college, and the amount of kids who are college age decrease?</p>
<p>Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, we want the best schools/education for our kids, and if we have to retire 8 years later, or take out loans, so be it.
I was just starting to feel like I was “not in the circle of trust” by not getting any aid.
Thanks kirmum.</p>