By the time I was applying for colleges, my parents made around $250,000 combined, which went to mortgages and other expenses, including retirement plans. I was therefore not eligible for any FAFSA loans, as they do not factor in zip code, cost of living, the kinds of assets or liabilities anyone has, nor inflation.
Affordable, to me, was in-state tuition at $3,000 per semester at a state school, with a few community college classes. This was mixed with scholarships, and my parents subsidizing books and on campus living some semesters as that could more than double the cost of tuition.
Are you saying that Harvard could have arbitrarily and unilaterally spit out a number close to that? And routinely does for people whose parents make more than $65,000?
My comp sci degree has the same utility as anyone else that didn't go to Ivy League / Stanford.
Your household income would be more than 96% of all Americans today and likely more than that when you were applying for college.
I'm not arguing that Harvard isn't expensive for affluent families, but even with an income like that you would still probably get financial aid. Harvard doesn't charge anything like full tuition to families under $200k a year, the point is just that they charge nothing at all if you make under $65k.
Again, it’s just a “fuck you” to students who grew up in an upper middle class household in a high CoL area.
Harvard’s assumption that the parents can shill out tens of thousands for their kid is just dumb. They don’t realistically take into account parents that don’t care much about education, large families, parents with lots of debt, etc.
My whole post was about how "income" doesn't factor in the liabilities and obligations or cost of living of anyone. Why would you respond with that reductionist answer? Why would a university penalize a student whose parents won't shift their budget, and that's assuming it is so simple?
I also asked a specific question, which you completely skipped, while doubling down on a fairness argument that this thread wasn't even about. You act knowledgeable in the matter and then aren't able to dive in, only defend your position. Its fine to say "I don't know", but right now what are you doing?
Were you saying that Harvard's "affordability" was anywhere close to the $3,000 tuition / semester I ended up paying? And that's because Harvard routinely makes up any number based on a variety of financial variables (which aren't as simple as "income") and ultimately feelings?
It's a price-segmentation system. It's not about fair. They have to target limited grants without much information to get the best set of students they can (plus probably keep some politicians happy about their demographics).
Household income of parents is obviously a bit of weird proxy for an almost-adult child. But, I bet it works quite well at finding academically inclined people who assumed they couldn't afford X University and persuading them that they can.
The alternative would probably be something like requiring all parents to buy "education insurance" for their children, which turns into a lump sum at 18, and then giving people with lower incomes a discount on that insurance. (This is a terrible idea, don't do it. Make education cheap or free instead.)
> My comp sci degree has the same utility as anyone else that didn't go to Ivy League / Stanford.
Based on my experience going from one state school to another, there can be a night and day difference in access between even state schools. I would be shocked if going to any Ivy League school didn't open up many, many doors that are closed to us plebs.
Mortgages and pension plans are not strictly speaking an expense, you're paying towards an asset. It would be incredibly unfair if wealthy parents could camouflage their wealth just by taking out a big loan on a big house.
The irony that you can study abroad for about $12,000-$20,000 a year (including rent and other cost of living) in some countries (notably Germany) that do provide equal or better education than the state school and most importantly also provide life experience local education would not.
I wonder why not many Americans go study abroad, if studying in their own country is so incredibly expensive and studying abroad can be cheaper and a richer experience. Especially comp sci is taught in English in many non-english speaking countries.
Did you consider going abroad when you were evaluating costs back then?
While the education is likely equal or better, college is also about starting your network, especially for those of us not going to traditionally elite schools.
Thinking about my personal career trajectory, my first job came from an internship set up by my university. A coworker from that job left and pulled me to my second, and when I left there it was because an old classmate referred me to a third.
Had I studied abroad and returned home I would have lacked that network, and that feels like a risk.
No, I didn't consider studying abroad back then and ultimately I was able to graduate without any student debt, much like my European peers do without thinking about it.
But yes I've become a fan of what Germany and some other countries offer. I've seen something that made me even more envious: a friend in neighboring Austria was in University there (for free) and it turned out the school was like a sister school to NYU and she wanted to go there and was able to go to NYU for free.
We are really getting the short end of the stick in America right now, amongst developed nations.
