Why don't wealthy students protest tuition hikes?

ucbalumnus
Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:22:02 +0000

nick_scheu:

As an example, I played around with the financial aid calculators for Cal, UCLA, Stanford, and USC. Stanford and USC use a similar estimator, but Cal’s and UCLA’s have fewer options. I kept the comparison as close as I could, but it’s not perfect. Anyway, here’s the total net cost of attendance for a student from a family earning $180k with $40,000 in cash and investments:

CURRENT
Stanford: $48,100
USC: $55,728
Cal: $32,634 (with tuition at $14,460 and room/board at $14,990)
UCLA: $30,156 (with tuition at $12,685 and room/board at $13,980)



However, one has to wonder about the financial habits of a household with an income of $180,000 but only $40,000 in cash and investments. $30,000 per year might still be “unaffordable” to such a household, since the low amount of cash and investments relative to their very high income indicates that they are spending almost every dollar they make.