It doesn’t matter what you or I think is middle class, Stanford has decided that if the family makes under $125k, there will be full FA and if you make more than that there will be some FA but at some point you become full pay.
@saabelly, you need to stop hijacking other people’s threads.
I disagree. Even if we’re going to say an income of 150K and 50K in non-retirement, non-primary home assets is middle class…Amherst will cut COA (including transportation and books and all that good stuff) by more than 50%, leaving that family $33K to pay.
No loans in there, either. Just ran the NPC and that’s what it gave me. Family of 4, only one in college.
I recommend that you make a well thought out detailed list of the characteristics of your ideal college, for the moment, leaving elite off the list. Then use the extensive online resources available to make a list of the colleges that meet those criterion. Narrow the list down to your top 20 or so, reaches, matches, safeties. Run the numbers. Apply to the top 10 or so, reaches, matches, safeties.
This process takes a few months. During that time, you will learn a lot more about the higher education system in the US, about individual colleges and about what you want. As you learn more, some colleges you originally thought were ideal will fall off your list, others will replace them. It’s a process … but the only intelligent way to go about choosing the largest financial investment of your life (or second largest for some) and where you’ll live the transition from adolescence to adulthood.
There is way too much preoccupation with elite and not enough with fit.
Search:
college websites
nces college navigator
common data set (search on colleges’ website for this - usually found under institutional research)
CC
reviews
and so on