<p>This is why many upper middle class people are looking at state Us – Parents resent having to pay based on income. Not that they resent working class kids attending, but that they resent having to pay more. </p>
<p>And the related issue is that the colleges are treating the family that makes 250K the same as the ones that make 2.5M (which is similiar to our tax law).</p>
<p>My prediction – is that other than HYP – many private schools are going to be relooking at pricing. Less and less need aid, more merit.</p>
<p>^^^^ Correct, on the 250k vs. 2.5M income being treated the same way, and I think you are right about revisiting pricing kayf. How high can tuition go before there are empty seats at tier 2, tier 3, or tier 4 school?</p>
<p>1) Consider a family with an EFC greater than COA, with a student applying to a school that requires the FAFSA to be considered for merit non-need aid. Is there any way for the family to fill out the FAFSA and yet not become fodder for adcom “you wouldn’t believe the kinds of people who are applying for financial aid, why we just had a family with an income of $yowza that applied” stories and can-you-believe-those-greedy-buggers shaking of heads? </p>
<p>2) Who are these gardeners who can take care of a yard in 15-30 minutes?</p>
A tad cynical? If this hypethical school gives merit aid why would the adcoms be so petty or dumb to “forget” their school gives merit aid and folks applying for merit aid need to fill out the FAFSA forms … and that the merit program is there to increase the quality of the student body whatever the merit students background are. Geez, one of the things on CC I find so frustrating are the high number of postings that assume bad intent or incomptence on the part of the folks in the college application process. The vast majoirty of folks try to do a good job in their jobs … if as a customer the experience sucks it is typically the process and not the person that stinks … and in the cases of colleges in my experience they are 1) some of the most bueracratic organizations out there and 2) have some of the most loyal and hard working employees out there. In my experience the image of adcoms sniping at their applicants and their families is about 180% degrees removed from what I believe to be true</p>
<p>My understanding is that the Financial Aid office doesn’t do the merit stuff so they wouldn’t see it - out of sight, out of mind.</p>
<p>“In my experience the image of adcoms sniping at their applicants and their families is about 180% degrees removed from what I believe to be true”</p>
<p>The post by kelsmom about her financial aid office only serves to imply intent.</p>
<p>Dunno if I’m cynical. Just that over the time I’ve read CC, I’ve read postings where adcoms have mentioned/written/blogged about high income families applying for aid. It may be that I’m misremembering, and that this was only from schools where there was no merit aid. Then the sniping from the adcoms would be justified. </p>
<p>Another standard piece of CC advice is to apply for aid the first year even if the family isn’t eligible for need-based aid, just in case the family’s finances suffer a reverse in subsequent years. Not true for all schools, seemingly true for some. It would be great if there were some kind of box that could be checked that meant hey, don’t bother evaluating this FAFSA, we’re only filing this as insurance, or for merit aid. That would be a win-win situation. It alerts the FA office that this isn’t a high-income family looking for need-based money, and it saves the FA office time.</p>
<p>Hmm… this has primarily been a “read only” thread for me, but why should I care about people “sniping”? Are CC folks going to start recommending that folks behavior be dictated by peoples “sniping”? Outside of the "forum netiquette " of course…</p>
<p>Some colleges have admissions and financial aid folks one and the same, so in such cases, of course there is no way you can hide the situation from them. Sometimes you will irritate the whoever is looking at your application. Most of these folks are professional, and have many applications with all sorts of stuff happening, and are not going to be focused on your particular situation. </p>
<p>Most colleges that have the admission director also wearing the financial aid hat also practice a form of admission economics where they decide whether you are worth accepting. They may well throw a $5K award to someone who can afford to come there, because they need students that can pay over 90% of the full cost. That’s almost as good as paying the full cost. So having a FAFSA that shows you can pay full the amount is not necessarily a bad thing.</p>
<p>I’ve always be straight forward with the colleges. I don’t see anything wrong with letting a school know that it would be higher on our list if it gave us financial sweeteners if that is indeed the case. Sometimes it’ll pan out. Schools that are truly need blind do not care, and those that do care can take in the info as to manage their enrollment and finances. </p>
<p>In this scenario, as in most, being able to pay is far preferable to not being able to pay. Kids who have a low EFC are going to be expensive for schools that are need aware and they will treat them accordingly. </p>
<p>And a $5K discount is still a nice bit of money even for folks making the Obama dollars.</p>
You made a choice. You chose to prioritize paying for private school at the K-12 level over saving for a private college. There is nothing wrong with that choice… but it WAS a choice. No one forced you to make that choice. There are probably other people with similar incomes who made different choices. </p>
<p>Although most of my kids’ public school friends came from middle-income families, there were some kids whose parents were upper income (in fact, some of the parents at my daughter’s public high school were quite well to do and also made generous contributions to the school). I assume that the upper income families who opted to send their kids to public school were able to save a lot more for college. </p>
<p>I’m not criticizing your choices: I’m simply pointing out that your current financial limitations are a result of your own choices. </p>
<p>Most people who qualify for significant need-based aid never had those choices to make. I live in an area with many excellent private schools – when high school rolled around, many of my kids’ public school friends opted for private schools. That wasn’t even an option for us to consider. Our choices were limited to the local public offerings. It didn’t matter what I wanted or preferred: that’s what I had to work with.</p>
For all the years that my kids were in public school, the schools served lunch, and I had to pay full cost for my kids to buy lunch at school - but other kids qualified for free or reduced price lunches. I never once begrudged any kid their reduced price meal, or felt that my kids should somehow be entitled to the same, despite our higher income. </p>
<p>For all the years that I paid for day care and after-school care kids, there were some kids who qualified for subsidies that reduced their cost. I never cared that I had to pay more for a service that I could manage on my income, when they couldn’t manage on theirs.</p>
<p>I’ve still got no takers on my offer to trade incomes with anyone who wants my cut-rate tuition bill. You guys want to have your cake and eat it too: you want the high income and the discount. </p>
<p>You talk about having to pay tuition “based on income” … but I’m sure that some of you do a FAFSA and have an EFC well ABOVE what the yearly COA is. If your FAFSA EFC is $75K and your college’s COA is $50K… well, by the FAFSA standards, you already have a “discount” – you are paying $25K less than the formula says you can afford. </p>
<p>There are all sorts of products and services that are discounted, and very often the discounts go to the well-to-do rather than the poor. For example, as soon as I started to get a little bit ahead financially, I discovered that I could get discounts if I could pay cash up front for many services. When my son had orthodontia I didn’t have much money, so I had to make monthly payments for years – but things improved for me and by the time my daughter needed orthodontia, I was able to pay the full cost in advance – and I got that discount. That’s just one example – another is simply the ability to save when you buy in bulk rather than individual items, or having a car and the means to shop at Costco rather than paying higher prices at a neighborhood grocery. </p>
<p>In the case of colleges, the private colleges do not want a student body consisting entirely of students from affluent families, so they discount as needed in order to get the student body they want. Jet Blue discounts as needed in order to fill its planes – but I have gone onto their web site many times and literally watched the price of a ticket go up in front of my eyes, as the discounted tickets are bought up. Affluent people who fly a lot often get to fly for free with frequent flyer credit, or with miles earned by charging up their credit cards – I’ve never had the money to even begin to think about that stuff. </p>
<p>I doubt that any affluent family would want to give up any of those many benefits they get simply from the fact that they have a good cash flow and seldom have to borrow or pay for items over time. The reality is that I may pay more – a lot more – for the so-called “safe and reliable” car than a wealthy person, because maybe to afford that car I have to take a loan over 5 years and pay interest – whereas the wealthy person pays cash up front. (I said “so-called” because I have a feeling that my idea of the “safe and reliable” vehicle that is a necessity is different from the idea of someone with more to spend; suffice it to say that a Volvo would be out of my league. I drove a Neon for 10 years, then gave it to my son & have been driving a Saturn since then. My son’s actually got a nicer, bigger car than I have, purchased the month after he graduated from college).</p>
<p>I could certainly be wrong about this, since I have a data point of one, but even in the tiny college S will attend next year, the FAFSA/Profile data goes to the financial aid office; the adcom doesn’t get it. I suspect that is likely true at most colleges.</p>
<p>"You talk about having to pay tuition “based on income” … but I’m sure that some of you do a FAFSA and have an EFC well ABOVE what the yearly COA is. If your FAFSA EFC is $75K and your college’s COA is $50K… well, by the FAFSA standards, you already have a “discount” – you are paying $25K less than the formula says you can afford. "</p>
<p>Wow, that’s kind of strong. And the type of arguement that likely has resulting in ever escalating tuition. </p>
<p>As to all your examples like air line discounts, these are discounts open to all – if one is flexible one can take advantage.</p>
<p>As to free lunches, I see food as a necessity. As to day care, it is provided, at least partially, to help low income people obtain and/or maintain employment.</p>
<p>I would. So does the government. Ever hear of GSA agreements?</p>
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<p>Why don’t you trade your income with someone making $5/hour if it is so
important to you?</p>
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<p>You have a problem with that?</p>
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<p>The formula is arbitrary.</p>
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<p>Do you understand how loans work? The time value of money? That a bird
in the hand is worth two in the bush?</p>
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<p>There are times when you get a better deal with a credit card than you
do with cash too. It’s all about what you can negotiate. Hey, how about
doing that with college expenses?</p>
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<p>Buying in bulk can be a win or a loss. A lot of people think that buying
in bulk saves money. It is often more expensive. Smaller items move more
quickly reducing carrying costs. More people can and will buy smaller
quantities. You can use up less shelf space with smaller items. And many
are gullible enough to think that buying in bulk is always cheaper.</p>
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<p>There is a huge amount to be said with being able to walk everywhere and
to not require a car. I have a friend that makes over $500K a year and
his family doesn’t own any cars. They walk, run, take cabs, zipcars or
public transportation to wherever they need to go.</p>
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<p>Hopefully that will be a failing business model.</p>
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<p>The Ts and Cs aren’t based on income.</p>
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<p>Affluent people that don’t fly a lot don’t get a lot of frequent flier
miles. Poor people that do fly a lot do get them. Yes, I have a friend
that used to be a courier - he didn’t make very much but he got to fly
a lot.</p>
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<p>It takes a set of rules to follow, discipline, aversion to debt and
the ability to delay gratification to get into and stay in the
affluent area for most. Sometimes this is hard. Very hard.</p>
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<p>That’s a choice. If everyone stopped a high consumption mode, then prices
wouldn’t be based on what you can leverage but they would be closer to
what the utility value is.</p>
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<p>There are rumors that Volvo will be sold to a chinese car company.</p>
<p>The affluent drive a variety of vehicles. From Mini-Coopers to Hummers.
The Prius is a pretty popular model.</p>
<p>One point for Calmom - I get the feeling that most, if not all, of the upper middle-class posters here came from low-income or middle-income families and already have the experiences that Calmom tries to convey. Calmom doesn’t have the experience of the others though and is basically trying to take an uneducated position. It’s like folks telling me about Computer Science with absolutely no background in it. It is frequently hard to explain things to them because they so deeply lack any foundation with which to explain even the basics.</p>
<p>hey calmom, if you read my last post and your last post, we kinda agree. as you encountered cases in life where you were able to pay less, it bothered you that you used to have to pay more. you didn’t begrudge others who paid less, just kind of annoying that you had to pay more. That’s exactly what i said. i don’t begrudge anyone what they pay, just wish i didnt have to pay more. </p>
<p>for the record, my 2 kids went to 12 years of local public school. This was all part of our long-term plan to be able to afford college when the time came. See, we’re really not all the same.</p>
No, it bothered me to realize that POOR people so often have to pay more than those with money. I didn’t feel annoyed back in the days I was paying more – I was just doing my best to make ends meet. When I felt the frustration was when I was paying less – I felt kinda guilty taking advantage of the cash discount or savings I could get, knowing that having more money put me at an advantage. I mean, for example, I don’t like it if I am standing in line at a supermarket taking advantage of some buy 4 get 1 free type sale, and there is someone ahead of me with a similar item in small container who is counting out cash and ends up having to put something back because they don’t have enough. (I’ve been in the have-to-put it back position too). </p>
<p>It was something that allowed me to get ahead of faster than expected – all of the sudden I had a little more money and my expenses went down, while my lifestyle got better… because of the combination of discounted purchases and avoidance of interest payments on debt. I was thinking about my kid’s college by then, so of course I was happy to be able to start getting better control of my finances — but I didn’t think it was a fair system. Just seems to me a system that makes life a whole lot easier on those with a little bit of disposable income. </p>
<p>And if your kids went to public school while you saved for college, then you made a good choice and you have the money you need.</p>
<p>endicott, point well taken. $150K is right about the sweet (sour?) spot where all benefits go away. By then, you pretty much hit the $50K EFC. You can’t take advantage of Hope credits, lifetime learning credits, student loan interest deductions, tax-free EE bond interest. You’re starting to lose child credits, can’t contribute to a Roth, … </p>
<p>But that all makes sense. Because you are wealthy, born to the manor. You’ve had that income for the last 20 years, if not more. You drive expensive new cars, live in a McMansion, hire lots of help around the house, take exotic vacations several times a year, send your kids to private school, … </p>
<p>you win, calmom. nothing else for me to say. </p>
<p>i obviously misread your post. you are a much better person than i. you willingly pay more for products since your now in a position to do so. </p>
<p>“And if your kids went to public school while you saved for college, then you made a good choice and you have the money you need.”</p>
<p>so i’ll shut up and go pay full freight to 2 universities because i have the money since I made responsible choices over the past 20 years. guess when the day comes when i retire, i’ll forego those social security payments, too. after all, W and I have been contributing to our 401k/403b plans over the years, so we’ll have money then too.</p>