financial aid question

I recently checked out the web page of a private school where I am, and was
surprised to discover that they make a difference in how they calculate family
income for financial aid purposes if there is a stay-at-home parent.
Essentially they use a figure for what the parent could in theory be making if
s/he went back to work. I'm not saying this is necessarily unjust (I haven't
made up my mind about that), just that I didn't know they did it that way and I
wondered if it was a new thing. Also, is this the same way financial aid is
calculated for colleges?

--Helen

H Schinske wrote:
I recently checked out the web page of a private school where I am, and was
surprised to discover that they make a difference in how they calculate family
income for financial aid purposes if there is a stay-at-home parent.
Essentially they use a figure for what the parent could in theory be making if
s/he went back to work. I'm not saying this is necessarily unjust (I haven't
made up my mind about that), just that I didn't know they did it that way and I
wondered if it was a new thing. Also, is this the same way financial aid is
calculated for colleges?


I'd be very surprised if that was how financial aid were
calculated for non-Private schools. I don't believe
schools/universities should be in the business of
deciding how much a family should in theory be making
if both parents work. But, a Private School can do
just about anything it pleases in this regard.

But what's next, they will decide you aren't making enough
money in your present job and could be doing better,
and therefore they deny you aid? eyeroll

Scott DD 10 and DS 7.7, not facing this dilemma for several years yet

Scott Lindstrom writes:
I recently checked out the web page of a private school where I am,
and was surprised to discover that they make a difference in how they
calculate family income for financial aid purposes if there is a
stay-at-home parent. Essentially they use a figure for what the
parent could in theory be making if s/he went back to work.

I'd be very surprised if that was how financial aid were calculated
for non-Private schools. I don't believe schools/universities should
be in the business of deciding how much a family should in theory be
making if both parents work.

It seems pretty fair to me. Suppose that I decide that when my children
are all in school, that I'm going to quit my job and travel the world
for a few years, thus eliminating my income and receiving a lot more
aid. I'll pay for it by borrowing money that I repay when I go back to
work, after my kids are out of school. Should this really entitle me to
more financial aid than someone who stays at their job?

Why should someone else's parents pay more so that the "stay-at-home
parent" can not work?

I don't know how common this is in financial aid computations, but it
seems similar to requiring recipients of public assistance to work,
which is certainly a current trend.

David desJardins

In article ,
David desJardins wrote:

Scott Lindstrom writes:
I recently checked out the web page of a private school where I am,
and was surprised to discover that they make a difference in how they
calculate family income for financial aid purposes if there is a
stay-at-home parent. Essentially they use a figure for what the
parent could in theory be making if s/he went back to work.

I'd be very surprised if that was how financial aid were calculated
for non-Private schools. I don't believe schools/universities should
be in the business of deciding how much a family should in theory be
making if both parents work.

It seems pretty fair to me. Suppose that I decide that when my children
are all in school, that I'm going to quit my job and travel the world
for a few years, thus eliminating my income and receiving a lot more
aid. I'll pay for it by borrowing money that I repay when I go back to
work, after my kids are out of school. Should this really entitle me to
more financial aid than someone who stays at their job?

By that logic, someone who gets out of Harvard law school and makes
their career at a legal aid clinic should be denied financial aid when
their kids apply to school, because they theoretically could have gotten
some fat cat Wall Street job and be endowing a new wing on the library
by now. Or someone making a career in academia as a mathematician
should be penalized for not pursuing much higher paying work in the
computer industry, or maybe with a defense contractor. Why should the
fat cat lawyers and computer moguls be covering education costs for the
children of people who've made less lucrative career choices?

Or suppose you got laid off just as your last kid went off to college
and you couldn't find another job. You'd be just as much not working
and living on loans as you would be if you'd quit voluntarily. How
might the financial aid office best distinguish between the two
situations?

Or suppose that the stay at home parent had crunched the numbers and
realized that the costs of holding down his or her particular job pretty
much cancelled out any income from the job, so that it was a wash
whether he or she worked or stayed home? And that the theoretical
salary the school is assuming doesn't come close to any actual job that
the parent might have had available?

The amount of second-guessing involved on the part of the financial aid
office would be equally presumptuous in any of these situations.

H Schinske wrote:

I recently checked out the web page of a private school where I am, and was
surprised to discover that they make a difference in how they calculate
family income for financial aid purposes if there is a stay-at-home parent.

Okay, I have a confession. I'm local to you, and I badly want to know what the
school you are referring to.........

We've looked at Seattle Girls School for middle school, but it's d****ed
expensive and hard to wrap our brain around. And, no, thought the cost is
prohibitive, I don't believe we'd qualify for financial aid.

If one can (potentially, maybe) pay for instate, public university education
*OR* private school (especially at the critical middle-school level), how da
heck does one decide, anyway. Either? Both, with the hope of a windfall? What
makes the biggest difference to the character of a growing girl?

beeswing

In article ,
H Schinske wrote:
I recently checked out the web page of a private school where I am, and was
surprised to discover that they make a difference in how they calculate family
income for financial aid purposes if there is a stay-at-home parent.
Essentially they use a figure for what the parent could in theory be making if
s/he went back to work. I'm not saying this is necessarily unjust (I haven't
made up my mind about that), just that I didn't know they did it that way and I
wondered if it was a new thing. Also, is this the same way financial aid is
calculated for colleges?


Do they consider childcare costs, both for 2-income and single-parent
families, as well as for the stay-at-home parent they assume could be
working?

--Robyn

(H Schinske) wrote in message ...
I recently checked out the web page of a private school where I am, and was
surprised to discover that they make a difference in how they calculate family
income for financial aid purposes if there is a stay-at-home parent.
Essentially they use a figure for what the parent could in theory be making if
s/he went back to work. I'm not saying this is necessarily unjust (I haven't
made up my mind about that), just that I didn't know they did it that way and I
wondered if it was a new thing. Also, is this the same way financial aid is
calculated for colleges?


According to my brother, who has 3 children in college right now (1 in
law school at UVA, 1 at Smith, 1 at Brandeis, total ~100K per year!),
yes this is teken into account when you apply for financial aid. In
addition, he found this year that Smith and Brandeis calculate the way
they look at a family's financial situatin completely differntly. They
got MUCH more aid from Smith than Brandeis, with the same set of
numbers, because Smith looks at siblings in college and the amount of
financial aid they get, but Brandeis does not.

Marjorie

wrote:

Okay, I have a confession. I'm local to you, and I badly want to know what
the
school you are referring to.........

Answered off-line with more detail, but this is a bit of what I said: "I was
going to say it didn't matter, as it's the same financial aid form that lots of
independent schools use, but I'm not sure that's actually correct. I mean, I
know it's the same form, I don't know whether it's the same policy."

--Helen

wrote:

Do they consider childcare costs, both for 2-income and single-parent
families, as well as for the stay-at-home parent they assume could be
working?

Dunno the details. Basically they say to explain your individual situation and
they go from there. Their default position, if you don't supply any further
evidence, appears to be that if you don't have two incomes, you don't get
financial aid. They do assume that the primary-caregiving parent of a preschool
or kindergarten child (as the youngest of the family) will be working part
time, and if the youngest in the family is in first grade or more, full time.
Under three you get a dispensation.

--Helen

My kid attended a private school that at one point tried to
set tuition based on income. It caused a lot of discord because
the families with working mothers felt like they were being forced to
subsidize the families whose mothers chose to stay home. The school
stopped doing this and now, with a few exceptions for the sake
of diversity and discounts for multiple children, have the same
tuition for everyone.

Most private schools do not have much of an endowment or source
of income other than tuition. Financial aid and tuition are a
zero-sum game. If one family gets a break, the other families
in the school will pay for it. Financial aid *should* be given
out very carefully.




(H Schinske) wrote in message ...
wrote:

Do they consider childcare costs, both for 2-income and single-parent
families, as well as for the stay-at-home parent they assume could be
working?

Dunno the details. Basically they say to explain your individual situation and
they go from there. Their default position, if you don't supply any further
evidence, appears to be that if you don't have two incomes, you don't get
financial aid. They do assume that the primary-caregiving parent of a preschool
or kindergarten child (as the youngest of the family) will be working part
time, and if the youngest in the family is in first grade or more, full time.
Under three you get a dispensation.

--Helen