Character of a growing girl (middle school question)

In ,
David desJardins wrote:

*You can't "not qualify" unless you really do have the resources to pay
*$40k per year, for several years. (And if you can afford that, then

I don't think that's true. At least, if things are similar for grad school
and undergrad, it can't be universally true.

The University of Pennsylvania said I personally didn't qualify for
financial aid as a 26 year old freshman veterinary student. I had no
assets in my own name except for a couple of thousand dollars in a
checking account and a crappy TV, computer, futon, that kind of thing.
They said that they had to look at my parents' assets also (I couldn't
really understand why but that's what they said. I had not lived with my
parents since I was 16 and they had not claimed me as a financial
dependent since I was 18). When they DID look at my parents' assets, they
said I didn't qualify for aid. Bear in mind my dad at that point had been
unemployed for about 7 years, and my grandma was helping my parents pay
their mortgage, so that didn't really make sense either. FWIW.

(I ended up working 40 hrs per week the first two years of vet school AND
taking out some loans on my own).

*you're downplaying your resources pretty dramatically.) For everyone
*else, it costs basically the same to go to a more expensive school than
*a less expensive one, because the more expensive school makes up the
*difference in the aid package.

Well, I went to the most expensive vet school and ended up hugely in debt.
I could definitely have paid less elsewhere, but, well - I got in at Penn.

h.

--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

Hillary Israeli writes:
You can't "not qualify" unless you really do have the resources to pay
$40k per year, for several years. (And if you can afford that, then

I don't think that's true. At least, if things are similar for grad school
and undergrad, it can't be universally true.

No, things aren't at all similar for graduate and undergraduate
education. Within the framework of graduate education, professional
schools (medical, law, veterinary, business) also are very different
from academic programs (sciences, humanities, etc.).

Undergraduate programs generally are run with need-based financial aid,
which works as I described (the family ability to pay is determined
based on financial aid forms; financial aid then makes up the difference
between what the family can pay and what the program costs). Some
universities also have a significant amount of "merit aid", which
further decreases costs for the very "best" students.

Graduate programs in academic schools generally expect students to be
supported with fellowships or teaching assistantships, which pay tuition
plus enough to live on (if one is frugal).

Graduate programs in professional schools generally expect students to
pay their own way, or borrow large sums.

David desJardins

In article , David desJardins wrote:
Beeswing writes:
Perhaps unfortunately, that's irrelevant. I can't expect our family to
qualify for need-based financial aid for either private school or
college in any case. We're in that awkward "price point" where tuition
would take a huge bite and yet we don't qualify for assistance.

I don't understand this at all. I wonder if you're underestimating, or
misunderstanding, how financial aid works. At expensive colleges,
basically, they put your assets and income into a formula to figure out
your expected family contribution. Then they make up the difference
between your expected contribution, and the tuition and expenses, with
financial aid.

Not universally true. The richer private colleges (Yale, Stanford,
....) try to put together financial aid packages that level the playing
field, but many of the public schools (which have gotten quite
expensive) have no almost no money for financial aid. So it may
actually end up being cheaper to go to a more expensive school!


You can't "not qualify" unless you really do have the resources to pay
$40k per year, for several years. (And if you can afford that, then
you're downplaying your resources pretty dramatically.) For everyone
else, it costs basically the same to go to a more expensive school than
a less expensive one, because the more expensive school makes up the
difference in the aid package.

The cost of the school varies enormously and the financial aid
available varies enormously, but not necessarily in a synchronized
way. You can end up with a bargain or hellishly expensive education
at almost any point in the "reputation" spectrum.

Maybe your child ends up with more
loans, but on the other hand, he or she will typically have a higher
income after attending the more prestigious school (regardless of
whether or not he/she actually learns more---this is just the way the
world works), so that's pretty much a wash.

You only get a bigger income if you decide to go into one of the
money-making fields. If you decide to do something useful to
society (like being a public defender instead of an ambulance chaser,
or a teacher rather than stock broker), your salary does not increase
just because you went to a more prestigious school, though your chance
of getting the job you want does increase.


It's also not too early to start thinking about playing the system. For
better or worse, the financial aid system is subject to a fair amount of
manipulation (e.g., decisions about one kind of saving, vs another, can
make a big difference---I don't think it's "dishonest" to take this into
account when planning your financial future). For that matter, if you
do choose to send your child to the private school, that will reduce
your savings when it's time for college, thus getting you more aid. So
it's not so clear that the private school costs very much over the long
term. The system really does penalize saving for college.

Unfortunately, the system doesn't only penalize saving for
college---it also penalizes living within one's means, saving for
retirement, owning one's own house, and in general any sort of fiscal
responsibility. That is inherent in any system that tries to set up
financial aid tied to "need". I much prefer the European model, where
support for college is tied to "merit" defined rather
loosely---basically, anyone who can get into college is given full
support.



--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

wrote:

Maybe your child ends up with more
loans, but on the other hand, he or she will typically have a higher
income after attending the more prestigious school (regardless of
whether or not he/she actually learns more---this is just the way the
world works), so that's pretty much a wash.

I don't think the world works that way for most of us. The choice of career
usually makes far more difference in the potential for high earnings than the
choice of college. Considered purely in terms of money, my expensive education
was probably a foolish investment. I'm not *entirely* certain that I've made
back a whole lot more than what my education cost (in constant dollars) yet!
But inflation makes that (very depressing) calculation difficult.

--Helen

Helen writes:
I don't think the world works that way for most of us. The choice of
career usually makes far more difference in the potential for high
earnings than the choice of college.

It doesn't have to make very much difference, to pay for the marginal
cost of the loans. Suppose that the typical college graduate has a
career of 40 years making an average salary of $50,000 (in constant
dollars--- the salary will of course increase with inflation, but that's
discounted in the time value of money). So that's $2 million in
compensation over a lifetime (in present-value dollars at the time of
graduation). If a student graduates with $20,000 in extra loans, as a
result of attending the more expensive rather than the less expensive
institution, then that student would only have to make 1% more, over his
or her lifetime, to break even.

I don't think heavy student loans are a good thing, for various reasons,
and I don't encourage people to take them on lightly. But they do have
to be viewed in context.

David desJardins

wrote:

If a student graduates with $20,000 in extra loans, as a
result of attending the more expensive rather than the less expensive
institution, then that student would only have to make 1% more, over his
or her lifetime, to break even.

Yeah, but what happens is that 1% of the students make twice as much, and for
the rest of us it makes no difference! ;-)

In any case, am I naive to think that loans are not really "financial aid" in
the true sense of the word? I know you can get them at attractive rates
compared to borrowing money elsewhere, but really, almost anyone can borrow
money for college. To me, financial aid means somebody actually helps me PAY
THE BILL, permanently.

--Helen

x-no-archive:yes (Hillary Israeli) wrote:

In ,
David desJardins wrote:

*You can't "not qualify" unless you really do have the resources to pay
*$40k per year, for several years. (And if you can afford that, then

I don't think that's true. At least, if things are similar for grad school
and undergrad, it can't be universally true.

My grandson, who dropped out of college at 18, has decided to go back
and is attending the same state school that he dropped out of. Now at
23 has been living on his own and supporting himself since age 19 -
his parents do not have to provide any of his support.

His mom, who got her undergraduate degree on her own after she got
married as a freshman, also got her graduate degree on her own
(supplemented by her work to a certain extent).



The University of Pennsylvania said I personally didn't qualify for
financial aid as a 26 year old freshman veterinary student. I had no
assets in my own name except for a couple of thousand dollars in a
checking account and a crappy TV, computer, futon, that kind of thing.
They said that they had to look at my parents' assets also (I couldn't
really understand why but that's what they said. I had not lived with my
parents since I was 16 and they had not claimed me as a financial
dependent since I was 18). When they DID look at my parents' assets, they
said I didn't qualify for aid. Bear in mind my dad at that point had been
unemployed for about 7 years, and my grandma was helping my parents pay
their mortgage, so that didn't really make sense either. FWIW.

Not only are grad and undergrad not the same, but I suspect that vet
school is much more difficult to get aid for than ordinary grad.
school.

(I ended up working 40 hrs per week the first two years of vet school AND
taking out some loans on my own).

*you're downplaying your resources pretty dramatically.) For everyone
*else, it costs basically the same to go to a more expensive school than
*a less expensive one, because the more expensive school makes up the
*difference in the aid package.

Well, I went to the most expensive vet school and ended up hugely in debt.
I could definitely have paid less elsewhere, but, well - I got in at Penn.


grandma Rosalie

In ,
David desJardins wrote:

*Hillary Israeli writes:
* You can't "not qualify" unless you really do have the resources to pay
* $40k per year, for several years. (And if you can afford that, then
*
* I don't think that's true. At least, if things are similar for grad school
* and undergrad, it can't be universally true.
*
*Graduate programs in professional schools generally expect students to
*pay their own way, or borrow large sums.

That wasn't my impression. My strong impression based on the comment from
the financial aid office to my mother, made on the telephone with me
standing in the office, that "you need to sell your house, is all," is
that graduate programs in professional schools, or at least at Penn,
expect the parents to ante up to pay the bills. My working was not
"permitted" by the school (if they'd known, they would have been very
upset about it).

--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

Kevin Karplus wrote:

In article , David desJardins wrote:
Beeswing writes:
Perhaps unfortunately, that's irrelevant. I can't expect our family to
qualify for need-based financial aid for either private school or
college in any case. We're in that awkward "price point" where tuition
would take a huge bite and yet we don't qualify for assistance.

I don't understand this at all. I wonder if you're underestimating, or
misunderstanding, how financial aid works. At expensive colleges,
basically, they put your assets and income into a formula to figure out
your expected family contribution. Then they make up the difference
between your expected contribution, and the tuition and expenses, with
financial aid.

Not universally true. The richer private colleges (Yale, Stanford,
....) try to put together financial aid packages that level the playing
field, but many of the public schools (which have gotten quite
expensive) have no almost no money for financial aid. So it may
actually end up being cheaper to go to a more expensive school!


Didn't the Ivies have to stop this practice because it broke the
anti-trust law?

But I agree it's often less expensive to attend private colleges instead
of public because they can put together bigger aid packages.


Jeanne

In article , Hillary Israeli says...

In ,
David desJardins wrote:

*Hillary Israeli writes:
* You can't "not qualify" unless you really do have the resources to pay
* $40k per year, for several years. (And if you can afford that, then
*
* I don't think that's true. At least, if things are similar for grad school
* and undergrad, it can't be universally true.
*
*Graduate programs in professional schools generally expect students to
*pay their own way, or borrow large sums.

That wasn't my impression. My strong impression based on the comment from
the financial aid office to my mother, made on the telephone with me
standing in the office, that "you need to sell your house, is all," is
that graduate programs in professional schools, or at least at Penn,
expect the parents to ante up to pay the bills. My working was not
"permitted" by the school (if they'd known, they would have been very
upset about it).

My experience is very much along the lines of David's description. Graduate
students in the engineering/sciences and some in the humanities finance through
assitantships from their department or a related department, professional
students (law, medicine, business, veterinary) generally self-finance through
loans against expected high earning power.

I did apply for financial aid as something of a back-up for my first year at the
institution where I obtained my doctorate, and in that process I was treated as
something of a beggar (more than when I applied as an undergraduate). Because
that's not the usual path for financing graduate school. I would put forth that
the response your mother got was exactly because you and she, apparently, were
trying to go the student aid route.

Banty