<p>Nope. For a few years, we made about 160,000. We paid for one kid’s college and saved equivalent amount for the other during that time.</p>
<p>Now our income is half that, and we haven’t had to downgrade our cost of living to match, because we never upgraded,</p>
<p>It’s all about choices, and we tend to make different ones than most people, I guess.</p>
<p>If you made $375K, you’d probably have about $265K of after-tax income. If you spent $45K per year plus another $5K on travel, etc., you’d be at about $220K left over for your ‘own life’. So I suppose you could spend that $220K on another 4 schools, but I would think things like mortgages, retirement savings, etc, might come into play.</p>
<p>I admit - that’s a high threshold - ok very high - and it should be lower. But based on my simple formula at $160K per year, you’d contribute about $20K per year for college. To me, that seems reasonable. That’s well within range for most state schools and leaves about $100K after tax for mortgage, IRA, other kids, cars, vacation, prom gowns, etc, etc. At $80K per year, you’d be expected to be able to pay for a state school (most state schools anyway). That seems reasonable to me, too.</p>
<p>My D has 4 options (1) attend big State U for $12 to 15K per year (2) attend small, very good private school (average ACT=26) for $20K per year (merit aid=$14K) (3) attend small, slightly better private school (average ACT=27) for about $27K per year (merit aid=$10K) or (4) pay full price at ‘dream school’ for $43-45K per year. Frankly, I think Options 2 or 3 look pretty good - putting away $15 to $25K per year for law school or a down payment on a house or something sure does not seem trivial to us “Rich Folk” who don’t make $375K per year, but make more than $100K.</p>
<p>Frankly, until a couple of years ago, I had never even heard of Middlebury - so what’s the point of coughing up that kind of money? If someone had told me they had an accounting degree from Illinois State vs. a history degree from Middlebury, I would have been more impressed by and more likely to hire the former, ceteris paribus. Ok, Harvard, Yale, Princeton - Maybe they’re worth it - but only Maybe. Depends what you study. Depends how you do in college.</p>
<p>I still think if you do a Net Present Value on future earnings, the $45K schools come up short. I know they are great schools and the campuses are oh so gorgeous, but my opinion is you’re really paying for your kid to live on a gorgeous campus - not for the quality of education.</p>
<p>I still think that at 160,000 you should either choose to live your life in such a way that you can pay the 40K (as I said, we did, and then we saved a lot more besides), or choose not to pay it. With that high an income, expecting others to pay towards it seems unreasonable to me.</p>
<p>Lazy reporting? Possibly. Intentionally biased headline? Doubtful. Just look at all the different interpretations of the numbers in the article in this thread. The reporter is likewise interpreting the numbers. Ditto the headline writer, who also has space (column width) and point-size constraints.</p>
<p>
You’re right, only for a select few professions will these high tuitions (at only a few schools pay off).</p>
<p>It is hard.It takes some time and energy to find and apply for scholarships, but the hard work will most likely pay off. You can sometimes find them by asking department heads if there are available scholarships, in the department you will major in.There are scholarships for less than perfect academics as long as you meet the other requirements. They range from athletic scholarships, to community service scholarships.It is not all based on grades as most of us think. Most people give up and don’t ask because they think they don’t deserve it!</p>
<p>I wish that this article was not posted.</p>
<p>Well, after all my analysis (and whining), my D got $12,500 from Wheaton College in Norton, MA and that was her 1st choice and that’s where she’s going. But if she had gotten $0 from there, she would have gone somewhere else. So we’ll be in the $30K per year ballpark, which is still a lot of wampum, but doable.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Full sticker price at one of those expensive schools, or out of state at a top-level state school, has to be looked at as a luxury purchase. The lovely architecture (thanks corun-dad), the interesting, diverse, well-heeled student body, the personal attention from the motivated staff, all are nice to have, but not a necessity.</p>
<p>Some will scream it is all about “fit”, but that is like me saying a Cadillac is a better fit for me than a Geo. Yeah it is, but so what else is new?</p>
<p>I would be that 4%. </p>
<p>Statistics suck.</p>
<p>cost, cost, cost for me. number one factor. I got into both of my top 2 schools (University of Chicago and Rice) but will me going to UVA (state school) in the fall for purely financial reasons.</p>
<p>I don’t know who came up with that 4% figure – it sure isn’t in the article. The article that was linked to said:
Also, I think the poll that the article was based on is misleading, because the majority of college applicants probably take costs into account before they apply – the community colleges and state universities are full of students who simply didn’t consider other choices because of money – same story with ROTC programs, Americorps and the military. I mean, how many young people have died in Iraq because they wanted money for college? If you are only going to take a poll on college campuses, you are going to miss all of those students. </p>
<p>In any case, as far as stats go, I’ll bet 4% is more like the total number of college students whose parents told them that cost was no object - since the upper 4% of income are pretty much the only families who can easily afford college. The other 96% is probably considering costs every step of the way.</p>
<p>i agree 100%. if you do an efc calculator before hand and find it to give you a 40-50k number which is comon for middle class and then you still have to pay for a house and retirement your kids will prob know. as a result they might not apply to a school where coa is going to be 45-50k a yr with a ton of loans. theyre going to make their application list accordingly.</p>
<p>pollyo:</p>
<p>Your definition of “middle class” gave me a chuckle this morning, thanks. </p>
<p>fwiw: Full pay students (or efc less than $5k) come from families with a $175k income, which is decidedely upper income in my book – top 5% income earners in the US.</p>
<p>I agree with calmom - the whole ‘4%’ number is a complete misinterpretation of the article information.</p>
<p>Here’s how Roger came up with the 4% (from an earlier post). The exercise was to try to come up with a more accurate headline than the overly negative headline in the original original story, based on the (sketchy) figures provided in the article.</p>
<hr>
<p>"“More than two-thirds (67.3%) are attending their No. 1 choice, the survey says. Of those who are not, 52.6% said they were accepted and opted not to go.” Therefore, about 16% of the total were rejected, and 17% were accepted but chose not to attend.</p>
<p>"One in five attending their second choice said they ‘could not afford my first choice.’ That’s 20%, or more than the total who CHOSE not to attend (17%). Did they poll the rejected students, too? And third or fourth-choice attendees reported cost problems at even higher percentages.</p>
<p>The other possibility is that the author meant to say, “One in five attending their second choice by their own decision said they 'could not afford…” That would make the numbers work, and it looks like that’s what bluebayou is assuming. I think that’s a reasonable assumption, as the numbers don’t make sense if you read the statement literally. If you estimate a composite of 25% or a bit less (based on the range of 20 - 28% for second, third, and fourth choice attendees) for the “accepted but declined for cost reasons”, then about 4% of the total population of students declined their first choice school for cost reasons."</p>
<p>I do agree that the statistics reported in the article are pretty sloppy. Sloppy journalism in the good old USA? How could that happen?</p>