We started planning for college back when our oldest was born. His college fund imploded twice, and is now worth less than we started with, four “career” changes in 20 years (mostly not our choice), our retirement account imploded three times in 20 years – all this to say, people can plan, but there is still a LOT out of people’s control. DH ran an estimating tool based upon each of the major candidate’s financial plans (mind you, we make less than the median income for our area in VA, which is over $60,000, but less than $90,000), under Bernie’s plan we would pay $16,000 a year more in taxes. Now, our situation overseas is even more fun because colleges want to include our LQA (A Dept. of State cost of living adjustment, which is based upon reported costs of living where we do) as untaxed income, dollar for dollar. My rent here is 4,300 euro (close to $5,000) for a 3 bedroom 3 bath 2400 sq. ft. home. That is known as “American” rent, because it is artificially inflated. My landlord pays his mortgage, the lease on his apartment downtown, and most of his living expenses (FWIW, we live in the “country” which is lower cost than a city apartment). We are paying double what we would for a much larger property in our neighborhood back home. The reason they cover our house here, is because there are no rental/sale reimbursements for temporary assignment to civilians. So, our salary is still being used to maintain our residence stateside (rents are not high enough to cover the cost of the mortgage, taxes and repairs). And no, “getting a cheaper place to live” isn’t even a real option here. Rates are set by the gov’t, housing has set standards (based upon family size, location, etc) and the landlords/housing office do their best to make sure you get as close to using 100% of your LQA as they can get (graft). Thankfully, my oldest two kids are high-stats. I expect #3 to be high-stats as well. Jury is still out on #4 and #5. Of course, we don’t know where we will be sent in 3 years
“the cost of a haircut hasn’t risen 3-4x in real dollar terms in the past 40 years and that is a service too”
That’s comparing a professional barber of yesteryear to a SuperCuts youth.
But those are choices. You could sell your home in the US. You could move back to the US and not get a government subsidy for housing.
When I worked for the government, I received an increase of 18% for locality pay, in southern California. It was, of course, included in my income. My rent was $2000 per month for a much smaller apartment than your 2400 house, which also would have been $5000if I’d have rented a house. Sent to Florida, locality pay cut to 4%, but rent went down too. In California, paid almost $30k in taxes. In Florida paid $22k (and higher insurance rate, and sales tax on absolutely everything ). Fafsa pretty much doesn’t care, it’s income, it’s taxes (you do get credit for those in the fafsa formula), it’s number of family membere.
What I’m saying is we all pay a price for our choices (even if those choices aren’t always in our control). You get some tax and pay benefits for living and working overseas, as do farmers in Iowa and long haul truckers and blind people and teachers. Some of those tax benefits don’t transfer to the fafsa formula. Try being a single parent and getting no education tax benefits for making one dollar over $90k (and most of it gone over $80k ). If two workers make identical salaries of $100k, one is married with 1 in school, one single with 2 in school, the married taxpayer would get a $2500 tax credit, the single would get nada, zip, zero, even though the single paid double the tuition.