NOPE! This is the mistake that so many here make. This may be true at a few of our nation’s most elite colleges, but this is not where the vast majority of kids are able to go. Run the NPC for that 40k family at Rutgers (NJ in state) and tell me how that family is supposed to make that work.
I remember another poster from about a year ago saying that they looked at various scenarios on the Harvard NPC, and they discovered as income increased from about $120K to about $300K per year, that about 90 cents of every additional dollar went to either Harvard or to federal income taxes, leaving a bit aside to pay for state taxes. I am sure that was no accident.
Agree.
@gallentjill I am responding to the hostility against families who feel put upon because college costs are super high and they receive no aid. There is absolutely a level of income, above aid and below super wealthy, where the costs of college are so stupendously high that they effectively confiscate fifteen years of extra hard work if they want to go to a specific college, while other families can go without such a contribution or can easily afford it. And my key point is that “financial aid” is in significant part a shell game, where full pay families subsidize other families. Its not the ‘endowment’ or the government or some amorphous pot of money or the college or magic lepreacahuns, but individual people who worked until midnight for decades only to face one million dollars or more in after tax college costs for a normal size family. I believe in financial aid, and believe colleges should be engines of upward mobility, but as presently constructed, this social experiement is being subsidized by the very families that are being picked on through articles like this. (And no, I am not part of one of those families).
Don’t you wish you can solve the problem just by changing the ruling parties. If I remember correctly, the bush administration estate tax exemption was going to expire and the exemption revert back to $1M. Obama administration didn’t let it expire and revert back to $1M. Instead, they exempted $5M which current adm doubled to $11M. In many ways, DEMs and GOPs are a lot alike. Dems may cater more to those in 9.9% and GOP to 0.1%. Neither remembers there’s the rest 90%.
@manyloyalties I understand its not magic leprechauns. I understand that helping one group of people means taking from another group. However, I believe there are many things worth redistributing for. Educating the population is one of those things I am happy to pay for. I use the power of my vote to express that belief every time I can. Public school tuition should come down.
With regard to private school, I do understand the frustration of families who find they can’t afford to send their kids to the college of their choice. Its especially hard now because the game has changed so drastically so recently. Those of us with college age kids would have needed a pretty good Chrystal ball to predict what has happened with tuition. Two decades ago, a hard working family could afford to put their kids through college. The costs now are dizzying. Sticker shock is real. I know that many highly ranked schools are losing out on very well qualified applicants who simply can’t afford to go. We are in that boat. Many top schools are not on our list because of price. I think eventually that may change. The country went through a period where families would do whatever it took to put their children through prestigious universities, including racking up crazy amounts of loans. Now, more and more families are taking a good hard look at the ROI and deciding that makes no sense. They are voting with their feet and tuition dollars and heading to State Schools and schools who give “merit aid.” I think private schools are going to have to respond eventually. In the mean time, I don’t think any kid’s life trajectory is going to be damaged by having to study science at SUNY Stonybrook instead of some elite private school.
To be clear, its not other people’s money. I am one of those people who won’t get FA and will need to send my daughter to a different kind of school because of it. Please don’t think I take this attitude simply because it doesn’t affect me. It absolutely does.
@gallantjill You said you care about the college ready kids who can’t go at all.
But anyone CAN go to college. There are many options some of which are: work while in school, defer for a year to save and then go ( still work while in school), go CC then transfer etc. Since I was very low income I chose for example the best scholarship package. My choice was based on money. The places which gave less money fell out of contention. I never thought, Geez, I cannot go to college because EVERY college did not give me a full package. BTW, I also worked while in college (sometimes up to 3 jobs). Life isn’t fair. In my case, I got parents who were low income and didn’t plan. But I also got parents who were interested in education and good school genes. Everyone has something to overcome.
@allyphoe You are correct, making some pay retail when 1/2 pay wholesale only makes the prices go up. If everyone were forced to pay a % of their income this would change. Not to mention paying 1 million out of pocket for college affects nearly every families retirement plans. We are forcing the upper middle class and high income to pay for the rest. This means less for charity and retirement.
I am personally in favor of lowering admin costs and nice to haves at Colleges. I don’t think a college president of a public university is worth $1.5 Million as in the case of Arizona State, nor do kids need to have expensive options for food, work out areas etc. They should be opt in.
There’s an article in the Wall Street Journal on the rise of accommodations for test taking in college and on the SAT/ACT. Wealthier students are more likely to receive accommodations than poorer ones. Again, they know how to ‘game’ the system for the benefits like extra time to take the tests.
@manyloyalties Some of us making half of your hypothetical example and paying retail as well without the extra cash. But in these cases the ‘excellent private schools’ are not even an option, so we’re paying retail for good state schools.
I’m profoundly uninterested in hearing about a $300K/yr family’s ‘financial woes’, as I’m sure a $75k/yr family would be uninterested in hearing about a $150k/yr family’s ‘financial woes’ which is why you’d never hear me poormouthing on this or any other forum.
Actually, I think it would if we continue this path. If you can’t get an internship without a connection, why would anyone think they can get a job without a connection when times get tough? Not in science not today but someday there will be a downturn. I suspect people’s frustration with not sending their kids to private is rooted to this sneaky suspicion that their kids future depends on it. And they may be right. That’s what’s so alarming.
I find this very interesting. I admit to not knowing everything about how very low income students can attend college. I understand that a small group end up at “meets full needs” schools. But how do the rest manage? The cost of in state public in many places (NJ, PA) seems exorbitant even for very low income families. In reality, how do the kids who are qualified for college, but not qualified for the elite “meets needs” schools or full tuition scholarships make it work?
^^^Debt. Or community college followed by transfer to a four year college with less debt.
@Iglooo Actually you might be right. I have found that in towns where people are very wealthy the connections can be enormously beneficial. So people are willing to work till midnight to earn what they can and keep their family in the 9.9% clique. Nothing wrong with that. Others may/may not have the same options. But the game is changing and all can see that the next generation is going to have a harder time. Even if you outright took all the money of the 9.9% and redistributed it in education and healthcare, it would still not resolve the problem. There will always be a large range of incomes across 350 million people.
It is very alarming because the middle is smaller than it used to be and even a college education doesn’t guarantee you a certain standard of living.
@TatinG I’m not sure Debt is the complete answer. Many in state options cost more than the federal loan limits. Maybe, the federal loans, plus pell grant, plus job income could make it work, just barely. But what of the kids whose parents make just above the limits for Pell and whose parents can’t take on debt. Seems like there are not a lot of options there. But again, I’m not an expert here. I would love to think there really are options for smart kids from all income brackets.
Don’t get me wrong. I think colleges should lower the cost of attendance by cutting to the bone. Administration is bloated as are their salaries and benefits. It’s unconscionable for these people to be living off the debt of young people.
D just graduated from medical school with a lot of debt. Most of it was for tuition but there are other companies ‘feeding at the trough’ of students in debt. The tests she had to take for Step 1 and Step 2 cost thousands of dollars. This for computerized testing. Then there were the traveling costs for interviews both for medical school admissions and for residency placement. More thousands. To get in she had to do research and volunteer work. (If she had to hold an actual paying job, I don’t know what). No wonder a large number of her medical school classmates are from upper income families including many physician families.
Very interesting article - thank you!
@gallentjill There are always options for every person as long as that person does not believe they are entitled to all options. Just is many get angry when they hear of people getting into Harvard on the basis of a major donation, others get angry when they hear about students who believe they are entitled to an education at X or Y university despite an inability to pay the costs. This is particularly true if one is paying full price and the other is paying less than full costs. So when people raise the idea of taking from a high income hard working family to pay the deficit of family, you will have many negative reactions.
The student who is appreciative of financial aid, grants and scholarships will go far. The student who is raised that they deserve these monies and that richer people should pay for them ( not out of charity) will not. Money is, and always will be best spent by the people who make it. And those who cannot afford a Ferrari, Yale degree or mink coat will have to figure out another way to obtain those things or just go without them.
I will grant you the point that there are benefits to the top elite privates that you may not be able to get anywhere else, especially in certain fields. We have hashed that out many times in many threads. We are talking about maybe 10 schools in the entire country. My point is more about what should be society’s concern. The number of kids who can get into Harvard but can’t afford to go because they make too much income is so tiny as to be irrelevant. I know its painful for that particular family, but its not a major concern for society. Below that level, I doubt to many kids are going to be seriously harmed by having to attend Stonybrook rather than Brandeis or Boston University. Those state schools have good alumni networks too.
In any case, for the people who are angry. What exactly is the solution? I don’t think this is a government problem. These are private schools. I can’t see Government limiting the tuition at Harvard. As I said in a prior post, I think many private schools will be forced to rethink the tuition hikes as thousands of kids look for cheaper alternatives.
Our sister-in-law in France got the same treatment in the same time frame for her cancer that my wife got. The view that French health care is inferior is a mythology that needs to die. Health care is heavily rationed in the US; my wife has a patient with an easily treatable condition who has been saving up for 6 months.
The only difference is that my wife’s treatment cleaned out our retirement accounts, the kids’ college accounts, all our savings, and, because healthcare costs in our country are tied to employment, her job was conveniently eliminated.
There are a lot of articles discussing actual comparisons.
Insightful article ! Most of the anxiety is from people who do not consider themselves to be rich, yet are not too poor. To keep the status quo is an uphill battle and we in someway pass that anxiety to our kids. God Help !