I can think of a much better use of 400k. I went to community college and a cheap state school and I make good money.
Colleges don't refund you if you can't finish or get a decent job afterwards.
The system as is doesn't make alot of sense. Just running though Harvard's cost calculator, if you have a family income of 300k you're out 86,666$. Drop that down to 175k and it's only 26k.
Given how bad the tax rates are at that level you might as well have one parent play golf all day.
300k is a very reasonable amount for two typical people. After income taxes takes 100k off top( assume a high tax state like Hawaii), you're talking about spending more than 1/3rd of your take home on one child's education.
> 300k is a very reasonable amount for two typical people.
It's literally four times the median household income of the US. (And even after inflation, bananas still don't cost anywhere near $10 two decades on after that joke was made). This sort of statement is a bit out of touch if you ask me.
Here's where I'm certainly willing to accept that I'm a bit out of touch - I don't have children. So my question is, how much would you be willing to pay if you thought something would give them a significantly better future?
If I math this out right $300K - $100K taxes (your estimate) - $86K tuition = $114K which is still a lot higher than the median household income (which I'm pretty sure is still pre-tax). That said, I think you are onto something - these schools are for the elite; not the merely well-to-do or below.
I also went to state school, so I'm not really dissing the thing, though people here would probably laugh at me if I said how much money I make, so maybe your mileage may vary on that one. But my perception (which could certainly be mistaken) is that the elite degrees actually have a huge premium, which is why there is so much competition for them.
Then they'd have to choose one or the other. My parents told me in no uncertain terms that there was no money to send me to private school, so I didn't apply to them; I'm also quite allergic to debt.
I had a paper pointed out to me recently that I found enlightening.
> The recent proliferation of studies examining cross-national variation in the association between parenthood and happiness reveal accumulating evidence of lower levels of happiness among parents than nonparents in most advanced industrialized societies.
It seems that the pressures we place on parents as a society have grown as we've advanced. I certainly am not built to deal with that kind of stress, and given the dropoff in fertility, I think that that's a more common view these days.
I took a much different route. I barely got out of highschool ( although I was at the point where I would of taken a GED test and walked out).
Then I did well in community college, couldn't afford my last year of college, dropped out. Worked for a very cool startup for a bit, and I was making a very respectable salary without a degree.
Eventually I finished my degree at a very cheap state school, but it hasn't really mattered. My major is in some unrelated non sense. Gets me past HR filters though.
Ultimately I just really love programming, I learned enough to get my first job with an old laptop. I reckon anyone with a 100$ laptop ( install Linux on whatever you can find on eBay) can learn programming for free.
My real belief is college is a nice to have, but shouldn't be required to start a career. If anything I think most people should take a bit of time to work and figure out what they enjoy before commiting to school.
>This sort of statement is a bit out of touch if you ask me.
Just a bit? It's wildly out of touch, $300,000/year is literally the 95th percentile of income for families[1]. Dude called income that's more than 95 PERCENT of the population "a very reasonable amount for two typical people."
Income is not a bell curve, but one standard deviation on a bell curve goes up to the 84th percentile, and two standard deviations go up to almost the 98th.
It's not a reasonable income to expect, but it's a reasonable income to have.
The issue here is if you make more you're problem in a HCOL area.
An adult making 150k with a partner who makes a similar amount is not rich in a city like NYC. I broke down the math above, but in no universe does the typical upper middle class family have an extra 86k per year to spend on school
Just tell your kids you aren't going to pay for Vanderbilt and they'd have to go somewhere cheaper if you are footing the bill. Plenty of options. My parents told me if I wanted to go to college I was completely on my own.
If I ran the world I'd completely get rid of the expectation your parents should pay for college.
Right now tons of people who's parents just refuse to provide financial information don't get any aid at all. This is very common if you have a bad home life. I fell into this category.
I grew up on welfare and I'm at the level were if it worked out with either of my last 3 partners we'd be at 300k or more. Life is funny...
Colleges don't refund you if you can't finish or get a decent job afterwards.
The system as is doesn't make alot of sense. Just running though Harvard's cost calculator, if you have a family income of 300k you're out 86,666$. Drop that down to 175k and it's only 26k.
Given how bad the tax rates are at that level you might as well have one parent play golf all day.
300k is a very reasonable amount for two typical people. After income taxes takes 100k off top( assume a high tax state like Hawaii), you're talking about spending more than 1/3rd of your take home on one child's education.