<p>Yea, I think the need-blind lie really catches some families by surprise; they really get hooked into the belief that if their kids are good enough everything will fall into place in terms of finances relatively painlessly.</p>
<p>The third principle is the one which makes the subsidy (discount) for the 5-10%ers possible. (Schools like Princeton have finally figured that out.)</p>
<p>(In a capitalist society, all other things are NEVER equal. ;))</p>
<p>No. Calmom said it isn’t true. ;)</p>
<p>calmom-
will answer your questions taken from edad’s quote. No, the majority of LIers work on the Island, and many jobs are east, in Suffolk County, not west towards the city.
Is it cheaper to live in Brooklyn or the Bronx? It depends what neighborhoods you’re talking about. Prices in more family friendly (though still urban) parts of Brooklyn are sky-high. </p>
<p>There are big variations here from town to town in home prices, school quality, and quality of life. There are some super-competitive school districts that fit the (very) generalized view people seem to have here, and people definitely pay through the nose to live in them. This can sometimes backfire though. We know of a couple families who made the jump to “better” districts, whose kids ended up being unhappy. Other districts are quite poor, but the vast majority are a mix, with most kids going on to SUNYs and the local community colleges. My son’s GC spends just as much time working with the kids who may be struggling to finish HS, including many who are new to this country, as he does with the high-achieving kids who are heading off to top colleges. Yes, the ridiculous taxes really blow, and it’s always a struggle to pass the district budget (sometimes it doesn’t - contingency stinks) but in general we’re very happy with our town’s schools.</p>
<p>That said, it’s the crowds and traffic that get to me most, though H. doesn’t seem to mind. As long as he and his friends get to play golf at Bethpage each weekend (which means taking turns sleeping in the car and/or getting there by 3:30 AM) he’s happy…</p>
<p>The point I was trying to make with my reply to edad was simply that people have some choice as to where they live. </p>
<p>To put some perspective on the whole thing I did a little research; contrary to what this thread implies, it is not necessary to earn 6 figures to make ends meet in Long Island – the median income in LI for a household of 4 is around $84K. (High, but not as high as $140K that the family in the Newsday article was earning). The top decile earns more than $190K a year. </p>
<p>The salary required to achieve “self-sufficiency” – i.e., what it takes for a family to meet its basic needs - is around $65K for a family of 4, around $41K for a single parent with 2 school-age kids, and around $24K for an adult living alone. </p>
<p>LI seems to be a place where there is a widening gap between rich and poor; the average salary of managerial employees is $106K, and increased 17% from the years 1999-2005; whereas the average salary of non-managerial employees is $39K, and those wages have been stagnant or gone slightly down during the same time period. </p>
<p>(The LI figures come from various reports available at <a href=“http://www.longislandindex.org%5B/url%5D”>www.longislandindex.org</a> and for the most part are for the year 2005, the latest figures I could find) </p>
<p>Compared to the SF bay area, where I live, the LI wages are higher but the cost-of-living is the same or slightly less (in both areas housing costs seem to have the highest income). The median household income in my county is under $70K – but the reported income needed for self-sufficiency is more than $62K for a family of 3. </p>
<p>The point is that even if the FAFSA system implemented the cost-of-living adjustments, the 6 figure earners would be seen as well to do. It would make some sense for aid eligibility to be premised on those self-sufficiency figures – after all, that’s an objective, statistically based estimate – and in very generous environment, it would make some sense to index that to the $50K cutoff now used for the simplified needs test. But if we gave Long Islanders a $65K allowance to account for basic needs, that family earning $140K in the Newsday article would still have earnings that are $75K above and beyond that amount. Even assuming that they are losing 1/3 of that amount to taxes — they are left with $50K above and beyond the amount that should be needed to make ends meet in their county – which certainly is enough to justify a high EFC … especially when you compare them to the median-income household for their community – or to all those people unfortunate enough to hold low-end jobs earning only $39K. </p>
<p>I hardly see how one could justify premising financial aid on a more generous standard than the self-sufficiency index – to do so would be to essentially reward families for maintaining a more extravagant lifestyle than the average in their community.</p>
<p>A family of four cannot <em>really</em> have its basic needs met in a high cost of living area on an income of $65K. I could provide the basic math calculations to prove that this is simply a fallacy.</p>
<p>My post didn’t touch on FAFSA or potential adjustments, just on the fact that there are a VERY wide range of incomes and lifestyles here-- most nowhere near as grand as many people have implied. An extreme example of what you touched on in your 4th paragraph can be seen in the 3-minute drive from Garden City into Hempstead. I don’t see the situation getting better, though I may be wrong.</p>
<p>Allmusic: I live in a high cost of living area region, but I chose to live in a lower cost pocket within that region, which exist in virtually every area, as Calmom points out. So, your assertion is true if you mean only the high cost neighborhoods in a region–it’s getting tautological at that point, though. (We can all agree, after all, that if you live in a mansion, your cost will be high.) However, in any high cost region there are plenty of places to live and provide for basic needs on less than 65000. </p>
<p>These are basic figures for our budget–living in North Jersey, where the cost of living averages to near the highest in the country. In fact, i’ve added in plenty of things which go beyond “basic” needs, yet it still adds up to 41,400, which should leave more than enough to account for federal, state, and SS taxes. In all approximations, I’ve rounded up:</p>
<p>Mortgage 850X12=10200
property taxes 5000
gas/electric 3000
food 6000
gas for cars 1000
cable/phones/DSL 2500
health insurance 4000
out of pocket med 5000
car insurance 1700
clothes 1000
vacation 2000</p>
<p>You could knock off the vacation, DSL, cable, etc, and bring it down even farther, still accounting for basic needs.</p>
<p>So, I disagree that a family of four cannot “really” have its basic needs met on 65,000.</p>
<p>Allmusic, I didn’t make up those numbers – the “self-sufficiency” numbers are calculated as being even higher in my county, but I live on an income that is LESS than the number and I don’t have any problem making ends meet. Obviously those are also averages – I’ve got a $1600 mortgage, while Garland only pays $850 – so my math is going to come out different – I think my break point is around $48000 a year – but there’s still room for economizing. In other words — if things were tight, and can easily see ways to cut costs if I had to.</p>
<p>There is no question that many families have more than adequate incomes to afford costs of a private college if they made a choice to live below their means prior to starting a family. But many of these families have made a choice to buy the more extravegant house, drive the late model SUV and spend lavishly on incidentals like meals out, big ticket vacations, etc.</p>
<p>For these families to expect, 20 years later, for colleges and the government to bail them out and allow little Johnnie to attend the private college of his choice at a significant discount is ludicrous.</p>
<p>I suspect that a goodly percentage of these folks rail against poverty programs and cheer any tax cut, damn the debt and deficit-Johnnie and his children can pay for our fiscal excesses.</p>
<p>Garland, I don’t see any retirement savings, so there are pensions? That would add a minimum of $6000 a year.</p>
<p>I don’t see any homeowners insurance.
I don’t see any water bills, garbage bills, entertainment (cheap entertainment like going to movies, eating at Applebees once in awhile, etc.
I don’t see any home maintenance or car maintenance bills.
You don’t drive much.
You don’t eat much. 
That’s a nice low health insurance bill you have.</p>
<p>Dstark–Thanks, I figured I’d forget a few things</p>
<p>homeowners 400
water bill 800 (garbage is in property taxes)
home maintenance (none–why our house won’t garner us much when we sell it)
car maintenance 1000
health insurance being low (see the 5000 out of pocket)</p>
<p>We don’t eat much??? That’s more than a hundred a week!</p>
<p>Haven’t been to the movies in a year. I wouldn’t consider going out to restaurants basic needs, but if you like, we can add in another 500.</p>
<p>Yes, we don’t drive much. Living near where you work is an excellent way to cut down costs.</p>
<p>So, counting some basic and some nonbasic costs, let’s add 2700. I think I still come in under the limit, and I’m having a pretty good time, too.</p>
<p>And retirement is covered by pensions?
If it is, that means your income is higher than it looks.
No home maintenace?
You never have to buy a light bulb? :)</p>
<p>Retirement–H had a 401K at former job, right now, we’re not paying any. The difference between outgo and income is savings–which is quasi-for-retirement until college is done, when it will be more for retirement.</p>
<p>We use compact flourescents. (they last seven years!)</p>
<p>Any way, bottom line, we’ve long since gotten out of the realm of “basic needs”, which is what I was responding to. Obviously, we are funding way beyond basic. Lucky us!</p>
<p>dstark, the self-sufficiency index doesn’t include retirement savings – contributions to retirement are something that people do with discretionary income beyond what they spend for basic necessities. “Savings” of any kind is what happens with what’s left over after you’ve taken care of “need”. </p>
<p>The federal government provides for retirement via the social security system, and it provides for higher education via FAFSA which governs student loan and work-study eligibility, and Pell Grants, which may be enough to cover the cost of public education in some states. About 45% of the students at my son’s CSU are Pell Grant recipients – so that’s where the money goes – a Pell grant is actually enough to cover the tuition there, so I’d have to say that is probably the type of “college” that the legislators really have in mind in terms of the way the law is drafted. That why the idea of “middle class squeeze” for 6 figure earners probably doesn’t resonate with them – the system was never intended to finance 4 years at Harvard.</p>
<p>Neither the social security system nor the federal student aid system provides enough money to keep the allow the upper middle class to enjoy the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed or to finance the colleges that they think their kids should attend – so people with income on the higher end of the spectrum are expected to finance that on their own. </p>
<p>If you want things to change, then the best way to achieve that change would be to increase taxes on the wealthy so as to provide dollars to fund more generous student aid and entitlement programs. Right now, the system just isn’t designed for that – and it makes no sense absent a massive redistribution of wealth to use federal tax money to subsidize people in the to decile of earners so that they can afford to buy into the sort of educational options that are geared for the most privileged. </p>
<p>Here’s an interesting article that may shed some light on the problem:
<a href=“http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/ForRicher.html[/url]”>http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/ForRicher.html</a></p>
<p>I am very much aware that I have had kid attend expensive private colleges with a substantial portion of their tuition offset by financial aid, but only a small fraction of that money comes from the federal financial aid system. The bulk is a voluntary and charitable decision by the private colleges themselves to fund a certain segment of their students – it is neither required by nor limited by the federal aid system. And whether it is called “need-based” or not, it is essentially a merit system – because the so-called need-blind, 100% need colleges are also all extremely selective, so by definition any kid who gets in is seen as highly desirable. The most selective colleges choose to allocate their gift dollars based on perceived need, because they see all of their admitted students as equally meritorious; the less selective colleges are more likely to allocate more of their gift money as “merit”, irrespective of need, because they have an interest in trying to secure the attendance of a subset of admitted students who war more highly qualified (or better athletes) than the norm for their schools.</p>
<p>Calmom, I have seen these income numbers before. Some of them might be a bit misleading. The East end of Long Island is very rural with many farms and farm workers. There are some sizeable communities hidden away from polite society that look like something left over from the depression era. The median income includes some severe poverty with two or three families living in a trailer or small house. I have a daughter and her husband who have made poor career choices and are trying to live on LI with a gross income just over $40k. No kids, just a dog. They are just at or sometimes slightly below the sustain level. The $40k ends up being about $30k takehome pay. Housing is a major problem. For awhile they got by at about $10k/year. At that level, you get a small, illegal “apartment” in someone’s basement. After a few years, they could no longer take the mold problem and moved to a slightly better arrangement with rent and utilities of just over $15k. The entire living space is about the size of a 2-car garage and not much nicer. There is no possibility of public transportation and they need to keep 2 cars on the road in order to earn incomes. That has got to be at least $5k/year and the majority of that is just insurance. That leaves about $200/week for food, clothing, medical deductables, cable TV (no free service), laundry, etc. We pay the telephone and a few other expenses and occasionally it just doesn’t work and they are visiting the food pantry.</p>
<p>Hey Garland, there’s a market near me that sells those fluorescents for 25 cents each! One time when I was checking out they gave me a bunch for free.</p>
<p>Calmom and Garland, I have my own definition of basic needs. They actually include light bulbs, soap, a washing machine, and a few bucks for retirement. :)</p>
<p>Calmom, you try living on social security in SF.
Maybe it can be done with roommates, but it won’t be easy.</p>
<p>dstark, you don’t get to create your own definition and then gripe about financial aid. The financial aid is based on what the definition is for people with moderate incomes, not for the people at the top. Your re-definition simply reinforces the point – no matter how you see it, you are very wealthy by comparison to the vast majority of Americans and you are in a much more advantaged position when it comes to planning for your kid’s education. But the system is not “unfair” because it fails to compensate you for your discretionary spending or shelter your savings. </p>
<p>I’m not trying to attack you, I just don’t see how one can have a fiscally responsible system of government spending that attempts to bolster the finances of people in the top 10% or 5% – unless you simply turn it around and give a flat stipend to everyone no matter what their finances. But the money has to come from somewhere; and rich people pay more income taxes than poor, so when you want an expansion of a government entitlement program, then you can expect it to result in increased taxes. And you will be the one paying those taxes. </p>
<p>edad – I would strongly suggest that you take a look at the numbers in the reports at <a href=“http://www.longislandindex.org/[/url]”>http://www.longislandindex.org/</a> – it looks like a lot more than a few rural families. There seems to be a growing underclass on Long Island. Yes, it is very hard for them to make ends meet, and many are moving away for precisely that reason – but the ranks of the lowest paid workers are the fastest growing, so if anything you are going to see a decline in median income over the next few years.</p>
<p>and dstark – if I have to, I will be able to live on my social security in SF. That’s because my house will be paid off when I reach age 66, as will all money I borrow for my kids college loans (I’m only 53 now). So with no mortgage + medicare, I should be able to manage fairly easily on that SS check if I have to – though I actually intend to keep working if I am able. (I’ve noticed that SS promises me more money if I defer retiring until I’m older). My dad is in his 80’s and still working, and I’ve got an uncle who lived to be 102 and was working into his late 90s.</p>
<p>I’m not griping about financial aid.
You’re not understanding my posts.</p>