Did Finances Limit Your College Options?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I’ve seen a lot of posts by parents and students complaining that the middle class gets financially screwed out of attending the very competitive, high priced colleges that some students manage to gain admission to. The implication is that the U.S. is a place where finances have never limited middle class students’ college options. </p>

<p>However, I grew up in a middle/upper middle class town where 88% of the students in my h.s. went to college. However, most went to in-state public schools – due to finances. Many didn’t even bother to apply to private colleges or to out of state colleges because they know such colleges were beyond their parents’ budget. I only know one student who applied to a college that was thousands of miles away, and she literally was a millionaire. Most students not only went to college in state, all of the colleges that they applied to were no more than a 3-hour drive from home.</p>

<p>So – what was it like when you applied to college? </p>

<p>I find myself very irritated at the sense of entitlement that so many middle and upper middle class parents and kids seem to have here who think that if they have excellent grades and scores, their hard work should allow them to go to any college – no matter how high priced – that they get into.</p>

<p>Both of my sons’ college applications were restricted by our finances. The same is true for most people we know including smart students who (unlike my sons) did the hard work to get the top grades and scores that they were capable of getting. Still, the only students whom I see whining about having to go to places like state flagships or second tier private colleges that gave good merit aid is on CC.</p>

2

<p>Like you, my brother and myself–both valedictorians, went to flagship state U. due to finances. And neither of us felt deprived. I did entertain some dreams of UVA and Cornell–my parents let me visit–but told me there was no way financially.</p>

<p>All of our classmates with the very rare exception went to state schools also.</p>

3

<p>For me, it always went without saying that of course I would go to college, and, equally self-evident, that it would be one of the City Colleges of New York. For 30 years after my college graduation and graduate school, wife and children, published author, and founder of a publishing house, my mother still moaned that, had I gone to CCNY, I would probably be living geographically closer to her today.</p>

<p>I went to Stuy, then a mill for gifted low-income or almost middle-income Jewish kids known for helping them skip town. Even after Williams, Oxford, and U. Chicago, it remained well the most competitive academic environment I’d ever been part of. We would send up to two dozen kids a year to Harvard, about 12-18 to Yale, maybe 35 each to Columbia and Cornell, none to Princeton (or Williams - I was the very odd exception, and I’ve written about that elsewhere), and assorted others. The bulk still went to the City Colleges; the City College rejects, if they had the money, went to NYU or Adelphi or Long Island University of Hofstra. </p>

<p>It was clear that if I was not to go to one of the CCNY’s, my parents would help, but I’d basically have to figure out how to pay for it. I worked weekends at hotels in upstate New York during the school year, and 80-90 hours a week there during summer breaks; 25 hours or so per week when I was at College, and some small loans, and little bit of scholarship help made it possible. No whining - who was there to whine to? My parents were sure that I’d get just as good an education at CCNY. (Since one can’t attend more than one institution at a time, the differences are ultimately unknowable - certainly, there were many kids in my high school class as bright or brighter than I was - I was only 125th in my class - who got great educations there.)</p>

<p>With my kids it has always been clear - we don’t have much free cash because of the way we’ve chosen to live our lives; when we did have free cash, we spent on them BEFORE they got to college (actualy spent a small fortune), and that if they picked one of those fancy places, there’s only so much we had to spend, so they’d have to find other ways to make it work.</p>

<p>For us, we don’t make a distinction between merit aid and need-based aid. They are both “discounts” to the COA. If the schools want to lease my kids, they will have to pay, or they won’t get 'em. No whining here. It’s just the way it is, and we are all - parents and kids - rather matter-of-fact about it.</p>

<p>I can feed, clothe, house, and educate migrant labor children in my south India projects for about $120 a year each. These are children I KNOW, many by name, some by extensive family background. It’s hard to me to justify going overboard and whining about opportunities for my own kids when I know I have so much more I could do with the extra dough, if I had it.</p>

<p>I can imagine with different life experiences and/or more money (but not enough to pay out $190k for each of two kids), I might be totally capable of being a whiner. Hey, at least CC gives folks a place to whine!</p>

4

<p>Finances are a real variable for most of us and those with a sense of entitlement will get a dose of reality very quickly. Unfortunately, some of them probably end up feeling bitter and angry over this reality. Not so for me. </p>

<p>This reality hits home all the time in other purchases (which is what college attendance boils down to) - housing, type of car, extravagance of vacations, restaurants chosen, etc. It doesn’t bother me that some people can afford a $100K car as easily as I can afford a $30K car and ditto with the house. They’re just in a different position than me which is fine. I’m in a better fiscal position than many others, which is fine as well. This time of year I’m reminded how happy I am that there are people make far more money than me since without them I’d probably have to pay even higher taxes.</p>

<p>Fortunately there are many more affordable schools that are just as good or better than many of the more expensive schools. I don’t think cost translates directly into quality of the education.</p>

5

<p>It must have been relatively cheaper 25-30 years ago. My folks were able to send their kids to private colleges. These are the 40,000+ (more like 45,000+) that I could not send even one of my children to today. My mother was able to attend city college (NYC) for free, and then was able to attend a private college that I also could not send my kids to today. She got a free ride. I never asked her how she got that, but it may have been merit based, but she came from a very poor family. My folks were middle class, but had a nicer lifestyle than we have today. There were sleep away camps annually, a couple of European vacations, braces, and a country club membership, and a much nicer home with more expensive furnishings, just to name some of the extras. One of my kids had braces, but they did not have the extras that I had growing up. Their money just went further than ours does. My H actually holds a higher degree than my folks, has a good job, but the $$ just does not go as far. Another issue is that when we grew up my parents did not need to spend over 15,000/year for major medical insurance. They actually skated by only paying for emergency hospitalization insurance (complained about that bill too). Today, I find that to be nutty, if one can stretch to pay for major med. They just paid for doctors out of pocket and it was not so expensive. For example, some routine medical tests today are in the thousands of dollars. Some blood panels can easily run over $1,000. My folks did not seem to have those bills (I don’t think that these tests existed). Over 10 years, that is at least 100,000 less that they spent on medical insurance. I won’t even get started on the other insurance bills. My point is that this effected lifestyle for us.</p>

<p>Bottom line, finances did not effect my college options one iota.</p>

6

<p>“It must have been relatively cheaper 25-30 years ago.”</p>

<p>Yes, and no. No, in that, at least among the prestige privates, COA has actually increased more slowly than the income/assets of the full-freight customers (top 3% in income). For many who intend to send their kids their, these schools are a better bargain now than they were 25-30 years ago (and the number of applications would seem to indicate the same.)</p>

<p>But the spread has widened. With median family income at $55k give or take, the median family earns a little less than a third of what it would take to send a kid to one of these places without financial aid. While I don’t have the figures, I’m willing to bet that 25-30 years ago, it was more than half, or more.</p>

7

<p>I don’t know about the #s mini. I think it is hard to compare. I have read your many past posts regarding this, but I know what we can afford, and I know what my parents were able to do (and my H’s parents for that matter). It just is not the same. Property taxes in NJ, insurance costs, and so on are part of the problem. It is not only the outrageous price of schools. We just cannot swing what our parents could.</p>

8

<p>My H and I both lived at home and went to private colleges that we paid for by working year round. I waitressed and he had co-op jobs along with a few other jobs. We worked our butts off but we both paid for school and books as we went. I think tuition was around $3500.</p>

<p>I do not see that as possible now. No matter how many hrs. kids work there is no way they are making $30,000 a year while going to school.</p>

9

<p>I think you missed my point. I’m suggesting that the prestige privates are likely less affordable for up to 97% of the population. But that 97% make up only roughly half of students attending, and that hasn’t changed (or at least not much).</p>

<p>(Of course, I’m older than dirt. Percentilewise, our household income is pretty much where my parents’ incomes were - likely around the 67%ile mark. When I went off to college, they had one old car, no computers, and one black-n-white tv, and had never been out of the country except for WWII and Niagara Falls. We have three old cars, four computers, have traveled the earth on numerous occasions, and have a 19-inch Konka! Many more channels - still nothing to watch.)</p>

10

<p>My parents were divorced and my mother close to destitute. I wasn’t at all sure that my father would pay 5K a year for NYU. I handled my search and applications completely on my own and found a trade school for $300 a year. My father made jokes about it…my stepsiblings were both attending private prep schools. I wanted to ask for as little as possible, and I don’t regret it today. OTOH, I’m proud to be able to pay for the college of S’s choice. We limited his applications to places less than 35K a year (so no Georgetown), but otherwise it’s his choice. I’m glad he has it better than H and I did.</p>

11

<p>I was one of five kids; three of us were in college at the same time (my freshman and sophomore years). My parents had NO savings, and my older brother and sister and I all went to private LACS. My brother was a National Merit finalist, so he got a small scholarship for that. My sister got a small scholarship at her college. When it was my turn, I got 1/2 tuition scholarship and I qualified for mucho financial aid, being the third one in college. I also had a work study job (the other two didn’t work…never was able to figure that out).</p>

<p>The last two in the family didn’t go to college until well after the rest of had left college. Both little sisters went to state schools, their choice. My parents had taken out a HELOC to pay tuition; they didn’t pay off the college bills until I was married several years after the last one graduated.</p>

<p>It seemed like back then nobody had money; hardly any of my college friends had their own cars, and the ones that did had old clunkers. Even though I went to a nice (but not exclusive) LAC, I never saw many kids in designer clothes; hardly anybody brought nice things to school. Our furniture in our apt. was all old and cheap. Nobody ever had any money to spend. We all ate all our meals in the cafe and watched the free movies at the student union. These were mostly kids from nice suburbs; whose parents had nice cars and houses. Most kids had typewriters, but if you didn have one, you could always borrow one (no computers back then, except for the monstrosity you fed punch cards into.) At college, you just made do with less back then.</p>

<p>Nowadays, it seems like many college kids have new cars, they all have designer clothes (including my D–I DON’T buy them for her, though, she buys them hersef) and the “stuff” for college is all brand new and expensive. They all have expensive electronics. Things are just different now than they were 30 years ago, including the price of college.</p>

12

<p>mini, are you saying that 50% are in the top 3% of income? Aren’t they less affordable today for all students (except those getting a full or nearly full ride)?</p>

<p>sax, my H worked his way through law school and had some loans. We both had student loans, but only for graduate school. We paid them off and it hurt, but did not stop us from being able to carry on with life (buying a home, marrying, having children). Those loans were less than the loans that my kids would need to take out if they went to law school today. What I mean by that is that the loans, I believe, would hamper their life.</p>

13

<p>mini, are you saying that 50% are in the top 3% of income? </p>

<p>That’s correct - actually, a bit more than 50%. I posted a chart in the Parents Forum a couple of days ago. I’ll go retrieve it. (and that hasn’t changed; these schools are certainly no more, and in many cases, less economically diverse than 25 years ago.) Given an “average” family situation, it takes a minimum of about $170k in income to afford full-freight at the prestige privates (at the top 3%tile mark) - the median of those paying full-freight is substantially higher. It’s someitmes hard to come to terms with just how wealthy the median student at these places actually is (and that it hasn’t changed).</p>

<p>Ah, here it is:</p>

<p>Need-Based Aid from Common Data Sets</p>

<p>As promised, selected data taken from some prestigious colleges/universities that guarantee to meet 100% of need. Usually, data is taken from the 2006-2007 CDS; in a few cases where that isn?t posted yet, the 2005-2006 CDS is used. It should be noted that there are schools that do not seem to post the CDS, among them Harvard, Tufts, Wellesley, Johns Hopkins, WUSTL, Columbia, Chicago, and Penn.</p>

<p>The first number is the amount given in institutional aid in the form of needs-based grants. When merit aid is used to meet need, the general rule is that it is counted as needs-based in all the data, except the total amount of needs-based aid. The second and third numbers are enrollment/number receiving needs-based grant aid; the fourth number is percentage receiving needs-based grant aid; the fifth number is average size of needs-based grant; the sixth number is average needs-based grant per student attending (i.e. the needs-based budget/enrollment).</p>

<p>Interpret as you like:</p>

<p>Amherst - $23,568,803, 1654/768, 46.4%, $31,393, $14,250
Barnard - $19,171,414, 2296/917, 39.9%, $24,611, $8,350
Bowdoin - $16, 285,150, 1660/734, 44.2%, $24,785, $9,810
Brown - $46,330,000, 5864/2337, 39.7%, $22,224, $7,901
Carleton - $21,435,032, 1959/1070, 54.6%, $23,279, $10,974
Claremont-McK - $11,693,280, 1151/524, 45.5%, $23,674, $10,159
Cornell - $102,833,211, 13462/5864. 43.2%, $21,184, $7,639
Dartmouth - $45,630,575, 3991/2000, 50.2%, $25,303, $11,433
Davidson - $9,981,805, 1683/540, 32.1%, $16,383, $5,931
Emory - $43,631,673, 6486/2414, 37.2%, $27,011, $6,727
Grinnell - $15,060,078, 1556/850, 54.6%, $19,317, $9,679
Hamilton - $19,618,055, 1799/881, 49.0%, $22,565, $10,905
Haverford - $10,501,626, 1168/479, 41.0%, $24,073, $8,991
Middlebury - $25,888,000, 2365/1011, 42.7%, $24,468, $10,946
Mt. Holyoke - $28,032,732, 2252/1273, 56.5%, $23,948, $12,448
Northwestern - $59,303,584, 7826/3268, 41.8%, $21,489, $7,578
Pomona - $18,237,526, 1532/808, 52.7% $25,484, $11,904
Princeton - $53,597,900, 4678/2340, 50.0%, $25,303, $11,457
Reed - $15,781,454, 1365/625, 45.8%, $27,018, $11,562
Scripps - $7,776,366, 857/351, 41.0%, $25,057, $9,074
Smith - $39,500,462, 2717/1609, 59.2%, $26,372, $14,538
Swarthmore - $17,451,430, 1472/719, 48.8%, $26,411, $11,855
Wash/Lee - $7,854,734, 1754/426, 24.3%, $18,370, $4,478
Williams - $22,978,912, 1965/842, 42.8%, $29,713, $11,694
Yale - $55,900,852, 5340/2232, 41.8%, $27,932, $10,468</p>

14

<p>Fast forward to today. We could afford the Ivy for the son but the difference was $180,000 vs. $0 at PSU honors. It would really hurt our financial stability.That difference is just insane and my son knew it. So he takes the free ride and we invest in his name, his Roth IRA and other funds. Even his other choices were $100,000 more. I just don’t believe he can get THAT much more education for the money. I read all about the bliss filled days at the Ivy’s and just don’t see it.</p>

<p>Im not whining…just a different choice that’s all</p>

15

<p>sax, This makes sense to me. Frankly, it seems to me that a student that has the stats to be admitted to an Ivy will be the student most likely to succeed and will be the one to find and take advantage of opportunities (and be offered opportunities) in a large U like PSU. Getting into an honor’s program is often the first opportunity offered too.</p>

16

<p>“It seemed like back then nobody had money; hardly any of my college friends had their own cars, and the ones that did had old clunkers…I never saw many kids in designer clothes; hardly anybody brought nice things to school. Our furniture in our apt. was all old and cheap.”</p>

<p>Very true. Now, even middle class kids in high school are driving nice cars. Most college students seem to have cars. S, 19, is one of the few teens I know who doesn’t have a car. He routinely drives my car, which is about 14 years old and is a Mercury Sable. My husband’s Ford van is about the same age. </p>

<p>When I went to college, only a relatively few kids had cars. Having an electric typewriter was a luxury. We did lots of cheap things like see the movies that were free or $1.</p>

17

<p>I saw plenty of money thrown around at college.</p>

<p>BTW, my H and I did not have our own car in hs or college, and our son does not have one either. I am thrilled to save on our auto insurance (since he is driving at school) too. My younger one is itching to get his license. I told him that it won’t be necessary to drive at home for 2 years (@1500/year). I told him that being licensed and costing our family 1500/year for one is enough driving time. I realize that he can work summers to help pay once he is 16, but that is not the point, IMO.</p>

18

<p>I grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood. Or at least we felt it was. Out of my high school graduation class I can only think of one person who went to a private college. Most of the students who went to college went to the community college or commuted to a Cal State about 30 minutes away. Also some students attended two UC’s and commuted. Many of my classmates went to work. In my community most of the parents only had a high school diploma and most of the Dad’s were blue collar workers.
I was one of the few students who went away to school. My Mom encouraged it. That was strange since she had only a high school diploma herself. I attended a Cal State about 8 hours from home. My Dad was a disabled vet and I received a check each month from the VA and from Aid to dependent children. It wasn’t much but enough to pay my tuition, room and board and spending money. If we hadn’t gotten the money from the government I would probably have had to commute like my friends.
My husband grew up in another city nearby that was affluent. His classmate’s all went on to college both private and public.
In the town we live in today I see parents who can pay the 40,000 and still have the kid wear designer clothing. I also have friends whose kids arent going anywhere because they can’t afford the Cal State tuition. I think most of the kids I know feel pretty entitled.</p>

19

<p>I was fortunate enough to be admitted to a private school with excellent need-based aid, and we had plenty of need, so it didn’t cost me much to go there. (I can’t remember any figures; it’s been too long.) I did work summers and did some part-time work during the school year. I was also very thrifty with spending money. I was able to pay off my student loans in two years by living at home and working fulltime–and still save up enough money for post-grad study–at a state university.</p>

<p>It does amaze me to see college kids today with cars, fancy computers, and practically a full kitchen in their dorm rooms. We were happy if we had a hot pot and a radio. (At least I was.)</p>

20

<p>I graduated from HS in Michigan, and I remember my father telling me not to bother applying to Harvard, because University of Michigan was good enough and far cheaper. So that’s what I did.</p>