“When you fall into that donut hole of being very affluent by any standards but still not finding that you can save what is now well over half a million dollars to put 2 kids through 4 years of a private university. And if it is 3 kids it is even harder. I think in this scenario there is a very big difference between earning $200,000 year and what you can save over 15 years and earning $300,000 or $400,000 year.”
It is not a coincidence that the median annual family income at HYPS (who have the fattest financial aid) is above the 90th income percentile ($170k). Median at WUSTL is 97th percentile ($272k).
Full pay private ($280k per kid in after tax dollars) is an expensive game that relatively few can even consider playing.
I would never let my kid borrow so much. I came out with $167k in debt. I paid it off at 38. I went to school free for 4 years, borrowed heavily for 4 more. For me it paid off, but only in the last 7-10 years or so. I don’t think a kid could replicate that today though on their own.
My sole mission when i started working was to make enough for my kids not to have to make those choices (plus, it would be $250k today, and kids can’t even borrow it anymore.)
It’s not a big sacrifice, but it is not a “nothing” to my overall lifestyle to pay full price for 2 kids. To have the money back would allow me to retire so much earlier. But it brings me joy and satisfaction to be able to do it. (Though if you want to retire early, i don’t recommend having kids!)
I admire all families that are able to make college happen for their kids, no matter the method or College chosen. It changed my life completely. If I had not gone, I’d probably be a totally different person now.
Several posters seem to take this thread way to personally. Let’s face it, if you can you can, and if you can’t you can’t. Those somewhere in the middle have a lot to consider and each will arrive at their decision based on their personal value system (literally - what value do you place on school x vs. school y). There could be 100 reasons why you think School x is superior, so if you can swing it without crippling yourself, you do it. If you don’t think it’s worth it, you don’t. Your reasons will never be my reasons and vice versa. There is no right or wrong answer here. Although several on the side of not forgoing full ride can’t fathom someone making a different decision.
“We wanted to immerse ourselves in the life of the mind at a college where almost every student is smart and very intellectually oriented.”
It think it’s crazy that in the US, outside of certain magnets and charters (and more reasonably-priced privates) at the HS level or NCF or a few special schools/programs at the college level (unless you land one of those very few big merit scholarships at a place like the U of C/Caltech), you have to pay an insane amount of money for that experience if you don’t qualify for fin aid even if you get in.
Kids in the EU only have to pay the equivalent of reasonable in-state tuition to attend Oxbridge. A few decades ago, they were almost tuition-free. Their admissions is also much more focused on pure academic prowess.
BTW, I daresay that everyone who is full-pay at an Ivy-equivalent would have gotten a full-tuition/full-ride scholarship somewhere. Not everyone would have gotten the Robertson at Duke or full-tuition scholarships at WashU/USC/Vandy/Emory/UNC.
@observer12We would not allow our children to borrow even fraction of this amount or would take a loan ourselves. We told them that all other loans but mortgage should be avoided if possible.
At a very conservative growth rate (say 5%), that sum becomes over $2M in 40 years. In real terms. That’s enough to retire on.
I value education highly as well, and while I attended an Ivy-equivalent and M7 b-school, the best teachers I ever had and the most intellectual environment where I felt the love for learning and exploration was greatest was at a public magnet where my parents paid almost nothing (a little over $100 a year to cover some fees). Education can be had in many places.
I find this thread surrealistic. The average household income in the US is just north of $70K. This is households of all sizes. For many households, higher education is a real sacrifice, even with FA and scholarships. To turn down a full ride (or nearly so) scholarship for a full pay alternative school, however great, is simply not an option.
Turned down free rides for half pay, relative to income and assets I think it is the same thing (FA offices seem to think so). So adding it as a data point to help OP determine prevalence, take it or leave it.
Surreal is right. I think there are a lot of households well above the median, all the way up into the top quintile, who think of themselves as solidly “middle class” Isn’t it human nature to assume that your own experience is universally shared? I know I was shocked to learn that my seemingly modest household fell into the top 15 or 10%!
But then, there are about 126 million households in the United States, so the top 1%er’s include over 1 million households!
We are, at least, still in the 99%…
(extremely grateful that we are able to send our son to a college that fits him like a glove, despite the cost, without undue hardship)
But one that usually devolves into a class “discussion” nonetheless. So full pays try not to bring it up.
I’m not deluding myself, I’m not “middle class”. We are not “buy whatever you want/quit your job” wealthy, and a huge amount of my disposable income goes into retirement accounts or to college. But I would never complain. I grew up in the “lower class”, whatever that means. Not pinching pennies or struggling is much easier, for sure.
The word “class”, however you modify it, Seems so elitist and unAmerican. It is definitely there, but we don’t like to point it out at every turn. Nor does money buy you “class” in the other sense. It’s just a conversation that has no value, goes nowhere and ends up with judgements and the like.
When I first joined CC, I could not believe there were families willing to turn down full rides for full pay at a pricey school. To me it was a no brainer to take the full ride! However, I do understand it now.
There are schools where my son qualifies for automatic free ride or full-tuition that we would not even consider due to low grad rates and poor reputation. If those schools were our only options, we’d let him start at our very good local cc.
Once we drew that line, we focused primarily on price and merit scholarships, and told ds that would be one of the most important factors in the decision. Dh and I both went to the only school we could afford and had great experiences there.
Then dh and ds went to a college visit at a college that wasn’t (and still isn’t) on our list. Ds came home more interested in the process, but still didn’t really care one way or the other about any particular schools. However, Dh came to me after the visit and said he no longer wants me to focus so much on price. Some of the pricier schools come with a lot of perks, and dh wants to focus on giving ds the best opportunity we can afford, which may or may not be the least expensive option.
So I really had to think things over. If ds gets a full ride or full tuition somewhere - great! But if he gets into our very good state flagship (a public ivy) or another top public in our state without merit, we’re going to consider them. These schools are more than we initially wanted to pay, but we can afford them without loans, sacrificing retirement, or short-changing lifestyle or college funding for our other kids.
Now for the reasons @blossom mentioned (I’m a homeschooling mom of 7), we don’t have the money for elite schools. But we can make similar decisions within our level of affordability, and I now understand why some parents might choose full pay at a pricey elite over a full ride at a very good school.
Some of the comments remind me of a former poster who used to claim to be “dirt poor”, yet talked about expensive dinners with expensive wines, all inclusive vacations, a spouse who did not work and the family having a personal banker. That hardly qualifies as “dirt poor”.
That said, by the links @PurpleTitan posted in post #101, we fall in the upper middle class category. I had grad school loans that took 10 years to pay off, but DH had income from being ROTC, and was in the military when we met. He attended a well known and well respected public (as an OOS student) but his choosing ROTC back then helped him start his savings early on. It also paid for the start of his grad school education, which he completed, as an instateresident in our area, when he was discharged and entered the private sector work force.
Posters are talking about the schools that now cost $60-70K. Most schools dont cost that. One can still be full pay and not break the bank.
Not quite the same, as picked a merit money school, but did not pursue the likely higher merit or even full tuition or full ride as kid was NMF.
For those that have the potential to be full pay anywhere, it is all about choices. For Blossom that meant working full time as hard as possible to giver her kids that opportunity to be full pay at their top choices. For me, it meant working but being on the “mommy track” and dropping down to part time for many years (and being lucky enough to be able to do so and to have great, but costly child care). We did not earn enough to live completely on one salary and did not save enough to allow our kids to be full pay. But they all had the opportunity to choose between some great options. To me, I was so thankful to be able to continue to work but to still be able to be home some days after school, to be able to volunteer in the classroom and to be involved in their activities. My dh traveled a lot for work, so much of the time it was all me. With the choices my kids had, I don’t think they lost much by considering cost. However, they were also not HYPS, yet had excellent but not super elite choices.
I am also not sure that any school is worth giving up everything for (but that is my opinion). I don’t think my kids would have been willing to trade all family vacations (which were not lavish but not staycations), or visits with far away family to be full pay at their top choice. We lived frugally in an expensive area (modest home, old cars, limited summer camps), but probably spent more than some would think was necessary. If any of them had been eligible for super elites, maybe my choice would have been different but not sure it would have been possible.
I think salary and how far it goes it also closely linked to location – coming from the northeast my salary is not so impressive as it might be in other parts of the country. That said, we have 5 kids, so if we want to retire EVER, we have to put a limit on the college spending. #5 is a high school senior right now.
And to make matters worse, both husband and I (2nd marriage) have exes that contribute nothing to their children’s expenses and at the same time managed to take us both (as main breadwinners) to the cleaners in our respective divorces such that we started again at age 50 with nothing.
So for me I cannot imagine doing full pay - but we did still (because of many concerns) decide on paying a portion for one of our children in lieu of a full scholarship. So I do get it but when people say oh $300k a kid is not that much money I cannot relate!
With my S, some years ago, “fit” was the deciding factor. S was accepted to one very good LAC (top 10%), and another LAC that was certainly in the top 50 in the nation. These would have been about 50% scholarship, and affordable for our family. He was also admitted to a less prestigious LAC on full scholarship.
We decided on the lesser LAC, not because of money (though it was a consideration), but because the two higher-end schools were overwhelmingly Greek–that is not our S–and because two-thirds of the students came from the top 10% of US households in terms of income. We did not want him to be amongst the “poorest” of his peers. He is thriving, has good internships, and the educational quality is perfectly fine. We believe that he is well set-up for graduate school.
Mom2- it sounds like you made wonderful and thoughtful choices both wrt your professional aspirations AND your kids education/enrichment. Brava to you!
It’s the thought that counts (really). It makes me sad when people back into decisions which have long term consequences based on bad information or no information. A young person I know is just completing an MLS (borrowed heavily for undergrad, borrowed heavily for Master’s program) and is “shocked” at how little librarians make.
Shocked? This is old news. She doesn’t want to “sell out” by going into the private sector (and those jobs are increasingly hard to come by unless you are truly computer savvy/technical/able to function as a knowledge manager at a law firm or similar) but can’t pay off her loans unless she does. And she thinks that for the same amount of time and money she could have gotten an MBA or Master’s in Public Health.
Is there really anyone in America who can’t look at a chart on the internet and see that librarians make less than other professionals with the same number of years of education???
The median annual family income at HYPS is above $170k. So at HYPS, $170k is the dead center of the middle class. Even though that’s the 90th percentile for U.S. household income. Because those schools have such large endowments, you probably will qualify for fin aid at those schools at that income level.
The median is actually higher at other fancy privates who don’t have quite as much dough. ND $191k, Vandy $205k, Gtown $229k, WUSTL $272k.
The full pay zone starts (depending on the school and circumstances) somewhere in the neighborhood of $200k. So choosing to full pay is probably a pretty painful decision for the those in the fancy private “donut hole” which is (again depending on circumstances) probably $150k to $450k. If you live in a high cost area and have several academically ambitious kids, $450k (which is where the 1% starts) may not be enough to easily full pay for all of your kids.
Which is why this topic comes up on CC constantly. Donut-holers “could” come up with the cash to send junior to Georgetown (HELOC loans, raid retirement accounts, eliminate all vacations, beater cars, etc.) but “should” they do that when there’s a deal at Villanova or Loyola? First world problem for sure, but still a very tough decision that most CC-ers wrestle with.
