At some level, most people – even those with high incomes – feel like they are making choices and sacrifices, in part because most people live in some proximity to those with more money. Our housing markets tend to work like that.
Even those in the same bracket are spending it differently. I may drive my 15 year old beater to my beach house (my choice) and envy your late model fancy car (your choice) every day. And not having that car may even, in my neighborhood, make me feel a little deprived - in spite of the beach house!.
People generally do for their kids what they can. If you live in an area where kids take lessons, play on travel teams, and go on nice vacations, – where real estate is expensive because it’s in a good school district or commutable to a higher wage market, it’s easy to feel strapped with a decent income. You may grumble about the costs, but you’ll probably figure out how to pay for these “needs” so your kids don’t miss out.
It is a choice, but perhaps it’s not quite as obvious a one as folks think.. It is, as @NiceUnparticularMan says, a million swim lesson choices. In spite of what we were all told, not everyone really got how expensive university was going to be.
The good thing is, these kids still have good options, but as has been the case all along, not all of the most expensive ones. You can envy these families with resources, feel they should have made different decisions, and still give them some grace.
Adding that it is families in these zip codes most likely to have attitudes about college that would make them feel like it’s a real issue to choose UVM over Midd.
I think the OP’s question can be translated to, “What percent of parents’ net worth is their kid’s desires worth?”
I say this because I doubt very much that most degrees from Middlebury are worth more financially than similar degrees from less expensive colleges/universities with good reputations. Therefore, if full-pay tuition and room & board at a good state university costs about $35,000, that’s about what one should be willing to pay for most other colleges/universities. Anything more than that for most colleges/universities is paying extra for what your kid wants.
Or what percent of your net worth is it to stay at the Westin instead of Red Roof Inn, drive a Lexus instead of a Toyota, or replace your perfectly functional but outdated formica countertops with granite.
I paid more for my kids than the state flagship and don’t regret it. There were plenty of full-pay options I would NOT have paid for. Academic rigor is important to me- paying more for proximity to beaches, better parties, more sporting events with bigger crowds, nicer dorms– no, not interested. I read posts on CC sometimes and scratch my head about what people value- but it’s their money and they get to spend it however they wish. As do I.
Yeah, my ultimate goal is very much NOT to make these parents feel bad about their choices, but instead to help their kids feel excited about their opportunities. As others noted, these days it is easier than ever for a kid who could get admitted to Middlebury to get a range of interesting offers that could at least somewhat compete on cost with full pay in-state.
And I would gently urge the parents in question to get on board with that program in terms of messaging to their kids. Like focus on the merits of the options that are comfortably affordable, not the unaffordability of colleges that are therefore not an option
For what it is worth, happiness research pretty consistently finds that once you have basics like financial security, health care, and a safe and comfortable home covered, the spending most conducive to happiness and fulfillment (aside from giving to others, which is a whole other topic) is spending on experiences. More sophisticated versions of this research also suggest that different people most enjoy different types of experiences, so focusing your discretionary spending on types of experiences you most value is a pretty good idea.
Not exactly earth-shattering insights, but I think it helps explain why spending more on a college experience makes sense for SOME families/kids, assuming they can comfortably do that without undermining the basics. And also does NOT make sense for other families/kids, even if they could afford it, to the extent they have other, more valued, experiences in mind that money could be used to buy instead.
There’s also evidence that people are most happy when they live among people with theexact same resources that they have. They did research on army bases where the housing was all the same, etc. Like what@Blossom said above. You don’t want what you don’t know about.
I wonder if there is research about the relationship between happiness and perceptions of equity. Perhaps people are happiest when they believe that everyone around them is paying the exact same price for the same experience and frustration builds when you all live in the exact same type of house but the Admiral’s family pays a different amount for the housing than the Colonel’s family than the non-commissioned officer’s family.
While I am not sure that this was the issue that bothered the OP (who seemed to feel as Middlebury had strayed from its mission in becoming less accessible to families like his), I get the sense that for some posters the different MSRP for the same experience was a sticking point. The thought there is that for low and middle income people and fabulous wealthy folks sending their kid to Middlebury would not require much of a change in their lifestyle or much hardship. But that for the donut hole family, sending their kid there would require greater financial pain or giving up more.
Personally, I don’t think that is always the case. I think sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. The 8K that a middle income family may have to scrape together for Middlebury could result in a huge financial sacrifice for the family and siblings. Or it may be an easier “choice” to make because there are things that they could actually cut out of their current spending. At sthe same time, it is true that for low and middle income families, a greater portion of the COA might be able to be paid by the student themself through summer and work-study earnings and student loans so the parent might feel the change in circumstances less. Of course in some families, the high school child has been contributing to family expenses through their own jobs so it is a loss of income that the family has relied upon. I can think of a few of D24’s friends who were able to send less to their parents during the first couple of years of college than they had been able to contribute to their family during high school. On the hand, for my family, paying for college for my two oldest has mot had an impact of their younger siblings.
I also wonder how much of this is people feeling their socio-economic position more clearly when it comes to colleges costs.
By which I mean, most other large consumption purchases can be bought with relatively low cost consumer credit (house, cars, etc) so high income/relatively low asset families feel like they are keeping up with other families in their neighborhoods but borrowing the full cost of college with a parent loan doesn’t have a low borrowing cost (relative to other financing) so this is a purchase usually made in cash at incomes levels of $300-500k+.
If you’ve been making a very high income but financing everything (as long as the monthly cost works - don’t worry), hitting that expensive purchase that can’t easily be financed (unless you take out a HELOC on your house, which may not be possible if you have already done that to finance home improvements, other children’s college) is a slap in the face of the differences between you and your neighbors who don’t seem to have this issue. All of a sudden, you feel poor.
Although not as uniform as military housing can be, neighborhoods in the US are often stratified or segregated by SES. However, just because you live among SES peers does not mean that you never see other neighborhoods populated by higher (or lower) SES people, news about billionaires (or poor people), advertisements for something more expensive than what you can afford, or unplanned unaffordable expenses like medical bills.
Agreed, I think that @beebee3 nailed it, especially for “doughnut hole” families in HCOL areas. Having that level of income is a very fortunate any family but it doesn’t always feel that special if one is just keeping up on the surface (but paddling hard below the water). Cars, vacations, kids activities can all be cash flowed and short term-financed without huge difficulty and it makes sense because everyone looks pretty consistent. But, people saved for years then used that savings because a house is $1.5M. They don’t have easily accessible savings and when college comes along it’s not an extra couple of hundred dollars a month to figure out how to cash flow and there is no easy place to turn for the money. People felt successful because they are but suddenly something that feels deserved is out of reach and “unfairness” creeps in.
For a student going to a residential college, the student will no longer be consuming food and utilities at home as they do while in high school. However, most families have not quantified that amount, which may vary greatly from one family to another (does the student eat peanut butter sandwiches or prime rib every day?). Most here tend to ignore such costs of supporting a high school student or commuter college student, so the cost delta of residential living at college seems higher than it actually is, but by an unknown amount.
A reason why I am glad I live in a diverse neighborhood. A large subsidized housing project less than a mile from my house; many smaller complexes with subsidized units for city employees in addition to market rate units; two assisted living complexes (one upscale, one not but still a nice place); an apartment building where singles and newlyweds live because the rent is cheap and it’s walkable to everywhere if you don’t have a car; etc. And two doors from me, a group home for disabled adults.
Maybe. People have lots of feelings about value. We are certainly a doughnut hole family as two academics. We also value education over anything else and made it possible for our kids to attend “expensive” schools. It’s worth it to us. Do I wish we got more financial aid? Of course, but I am also so thankful that we are able to make it work to attend their schools. We don’t buy nice things or drive nice cars.
I think if you want to go to Middlebury but think it’s too expensive, the OP should not pay for it. Clearly they could pay for it but don’t see the value. That’ OK.
I definitely noticed this with my kids, particularly S27 (who is in boarding school). Grocery bills are so much cheaper when he is away. It is not just food though, my kids have all done activities on their own dime or for free at school and college that I may have paid out of pocket or at least felt pressure to subsidize if they had been home.
I agree this is the heart of the issue for at least a lot of these families. I also still think it is true they were warned this was coming. But I also have learned in my recent years on related social media that an awful lot of parents seem not to have really gamed this out until the point they are basically telling a kid they had previously been encouraging to think in terms of certain colleges that nope, actually they won’t be paying for those colleges. And I understand that probably feels pretty bad.
In fact, apparently sometimes that conversation doesn’t happen until the kid has actually been accepted and is looking at their offer, and the parents finally say on reflection they aren’t willing to pay. I really feel for the kid in such cases, and I kinda have a hard time excusing the parents for letting it get that far.
I guess the point of this rambling response is while I think it is perfectly fine for parents to have priorities such that they are not willing to pay what these colleges will charge them, I think they really need to realize that is the decision they are making in a timely fashion, and be clear about it with their kids well in advance of beginning the college search process, so there are no disappointed expectations.
Same, there are definitely cost savings at Home Base that somewhat blunt the impact of a residential college’s full COA. I’m still pretty sure that these have been the most expensive years yet for us in regards to our S24. But it definitely was not zero before.
In fact, we used private K-12s for him, so in a sense that is all the more obvious. Now, in our case, we intentionally bought a nice house in a nice neighborhood in a not-so-well-regarded school district, which meant we saved a lot on housing costs versus buying in a top public district. It wasn’t quite a wash when both kids were in K-12, but actually we are a bit ahead now that it is only D30 . . . which she is about to ruin by going to boarding school.
But still, point being there are often angles where private school costs can at least be partially offset by avoiding other costs, even if those other costs don’t come in the form of a tuition bill.
Which leads me to a further observation–at least anecdotally, I feel like parents who see themselves as donut hole cases disproportionately come out of cases where they bought in expensive public school districts and used those public K-12s. In a way, all that continues to make sense if their kids just go on to good public universities. But when they try to “jump tracks” to the private system, now they are looking at paying a type of bill they didn’t have before, and unless they move they are basically still paying to live in the expensive public school district too.
So I get that may feel a lot worse, and in some cases may actually be worse. But I also still think this is all basically forseeable.
This is very much the case amongst folks I know. The real estate is expensive in these districts, and in many states, tho local taxes are as well. That combo requires so much of current income (mortgage and taxes) that it may be difficult to stash away much for college.
Fwiw, while I know a few folks who chose to live in a lower tax jurisdiction and pay for (and drive to - NJ doesn’t have the mandate PA does re: getting kids to non-public schools) private schools, it really was only a few. At the point when the kids were young, with K-12 in front of them, the draw of a good local school and living near it and in the community it served, was VERY attractive.