<p>Unfortunately, that does not tell the whole story. My wife has gone back to work as a financial consultant working part time. She made approximately $30,000 last year. In California (where we live), when you add federal, State, self-employment tax and everything else under the sun (except sales tax on purchased goods), we pay between 50 and 52 cents on the dollar in taxes for every dollar she makes. The financial aid packages we’ve seen are expecting a family contribution in the $35,000 range. If my wife quit working, our family contribution would go down about $9,000. Put another way, between college costs and taxes, we’re netting about $6,000 per year. While the $500 per month is nice, it’s not clear that the additional driving, clothes and other costs associated with her working don’t cost more. There is something seriously wrong with a system where someone who wants to work and pay their own way may be better off quiting work.</p>
<p>As an aside, we thought that we’d mitigate some of this with scholarships. As you probably know, however, that only reduces the $2,000 or so that they want our son to contribute. The next $20,000 goes to the University. Anything above that goes to the parents.</p>
<p>What’s particularly annoying (and that’s saying something because a lot of this is annoying) is that these school have the guts to advertise that they are “full need” and that the students graduate with little or no debt. They conveniently leave out the carnage of the family left in the institution’s wake.</p>