<p>Yeah, I had a wind-up alarm clock. A clock radio was too much money! A year at my flagship was $3600, all-inclusive (circa 1979). Couldn’t get enough money for Duke, even though I qualified for full Pell. I didn’t know about “gapping” then! No help from home – I was the oldest of five. My mom handed me $50 at my dorm and said “You’re on your own.” If I hadn’t had a $1500 external scholarship, I would have had to go home that day. Instead, I found a job within 24 hours. But for me, from Day One, college was about economic survival so I could stay there, not about the academic success that I’d come to seek. It took a big toll.</p>
<p>DH went to an Ivy on full-tuition merit (mini, he was a low-income Jewish boy from Bx Sci trying to get outta town), plus W/S, working like a dog over the summers and student loans. His father was unemployed much of college, so there was no family assistance at all. Had a B&W TV until our 5th anniversary, and 1950s furniture I’d bought from another student for $120. I loaned DH (the my BF, soon-to-be fiance) the $500 down payment for his first car, which he bought after graduation. He repaid me after his first paycheck, at which point he retired from hitchhiking to work.</p>
<p>A year at my private top 20 school in 1975 was right around $5K. Today it costs +/- $46K. My mother never worked, and my parents sent us all to private colleges. </p>
<p>No matter how many times Mini disagrees with me, I will say that today’s college costs and circumstances are substantially different. (I know, I am ready to hear that today’s kids actually get a better deal…)</p>
<p>My dad told me I could go anywhere I wanted to school, as long as it was in Ohio. He was an officer in the Navy and a resident of Ohio, which meant I got in-state tuition even though I had never lived there. I went to a very competitive high school in Northern Virginia, which did send kids to Ivy League and other high-end schools but plenty of kids scattered, going to their own parent’s state of residency. My best friend went to University of Florida, my boyfriend went to West Point, another friend went to University of Washington and of course, plenty of people went to UVA and W&M. It just wasn’t an option for me to go Ivy League --that was for “rich people”, even though I had the grades and test scores. My parents paid $4K a year, including room and board for my most excellent education and I worked in the summers to pay for my entertainment (a pitcher of 3.2 beer was $2.75 and my dad wanted to know why most of my checks were written for that amount).</p>
<p>Looking back my parents never even mentioned college. I guess because they couldn’t pay for it. Never even applied for financial aid because I didn’t know anything about it. Same with H. He was very poor but very smart. All the high school suggested to him was the military. Yep…right at the end of Nam. Just what he had in mind.</p>
<p>“No matter how many times Mini disagrees with me, I will say that today’s college costs and circumstances are substantially different. (I know, I am ready to hear that today’s kids actually get a better deal…)”</p>
<p>They are! (why did you think I’d disagree with that?) And 97% of kids (applying to prestige colleges) would NOT get a better deal, if they got in. But they (for the most part) won’t make up even half the student body, and they didn’t before. That’s the part that hasn’t changed.</p>
<p>I just think that most folks don’t appreciate how truly wealthy (and unusual) the median student at a lot of these institutions really is, and has to be to pay the full-freight.</p>
<p>We knew that there would be no need-based aid for us as we had saved for college. However, we did not save enough to pay for a $30,000 plus /year school for each of our kids. So… we did limit them. We told them that we would not be taking out loans that would stretch retirement out another 10 years.
My d’s fully understand and limited their search to schools that cost less than $30,000 tuition/room and board and then they also tried to choose ones where merit aid might be offered.
The only person that seemed to have an issue with this was their G/C ( who I do like and I feel is a good G/C). He made me feel a little selfish because I did not want my kids to apply to “reach” schools where the cost of attendance was more than we were comfortable with. I didn’t want them to apply and then tell them we wouldn’t pay if they got accepted. Honestly, the schools in question weren’t really “fits” for them anyway - I think he just wanted them to apply to the “best ranked” school they could because he saw their potential.
My oldest d is very happy where she ended up and will graduate debt- free, youngest d is still in search process, so we will see.</p>
<p>I just realized that I did not answer the question really -oops. I applied to 1 college - I could afford it and the location was right. Things were much simpler then.</p>
<p>I remember when I went to a small, local LAC, in the late 70s, it was $5000. My brother went to a state school. It cost $4000.</p>
<p>Today, the first college costs $35000. The second costs $19000.</p>
<p>It is both the dramatic increases in prices, plus the widening of the gaps between public and private, that take our breath away. (and yes, the 35K school gives away a lot of money, but that only counts if you’re the one getting it)</p>
<p>I attended a private law school in 1980. The tuition was $6,500 per year, which I paid with a Cal Guaranteed Student Loan, which was available to every student, regardless of need.</p>
<p>Tuition at that same school today is $36,000.</p>
<p>(Also, upon graduation, my first job paid $33,000, so my debt was a little more than half my income. Today, a new grad would need to earn more than $216,000 in first job to get the same deal)</p>
<p>Today, the first college costs $35000. The second costs $19000.</p>
<p>23 years ago, we bought our first house
We paid $70,000, an increase for the people who sold it to us of about $15,000 from when they had purchased it, 5 years before.
Even though we haven’t “done” anything to it, it is now assessed at $400,000 and houses in our neighborhood are going for even more money</p>
<p>Comparatively, increase in college costs don’t shock me, after all they have been telling us for 30 years that college costs are going up faster than inflation.</p>
<p>What they didn’t tell us, was that even for warehouse or manufacturing work, you will now need at least two years of college to be hired, even though that education does not earn you a higher starting wage or more generous retirement package.</p>
<p>I myself, did not attend college, nor was it mentioned as an option, although both my parents had attended UW. ( my father put himself through school, although he died before I turned 18 and he was the only one that might have mentioned college was a possibility at some point)</p>
<p>My H also did not attend college, neither of his parents had, although they had been able to travel, buy vacation homes, and new cars every couple years.</p>
<p>If you look at my chart on the previous page, and added up the total of students at all the school combined (6 Ivies and about 20 others, representing probably around 75% of all COFHE schools), you’d find there are a total of only 36,389 receiving any need-based aid (and you’d likely find that about half of those come from families earning $100k-$170k). About the size of a large state university. Add 25% or so, and divide by 4, and you find that may 10,000-12,000 first-year students received need-based aid at all these prestige private colleges combined, and the number of students below the top quntile ($92k and below) is no more than maybe 6,000 total.</p>
<p>There are really aren’t too many non-wealthy students at these places, and, percentagewise, it was no different 25 years ago. What has happened is a greater income spread. The wealthy are much wealthier than they were 25 years ago (as the article above begins to suggest), and the colleges less economically diverse as a result.</p>
<p>“It must have been relatively cheaper 25-30 years ago.”</p>
<p>No doubt. My mother actually worked her way through her pre-med years at the University of Chicago by working in the hospital morgue. Yes, in the early 60’s it was actually possible to earn enough in a year of part-time work to pay for a year’s tuition at an elite private college. It’s hard to imagine now.</p>
<p>Back in the mid-70’s, my Mom told me I could go to any college I wanted – as long as it was a State college in the state of Ohio, and it wasn’t Kent State.</p>
No help from home – I was the oldest of five. My mom handed me $50 at my dorm and said “You’re on your own.” If I hadn’t had a $1500 external scholarship, I would have had to go home that day. Instead, I found a job within 24 hours. But for me, from Day One, college was about economic survival so I could stay there, not about the academic success that I’d come to seek. It took a big toll.</p>